In some ways this echoes Michael Young's point about meritocracy: that it establishes some set of credentials by which people can claim to deserve their wealth, and so those with wealth will pursue those credentials. This warps both the wealthy themselves (they have to make a claim which is either untrue or at least unrepresentative of the reality) and the credentialing system, which takes on the role of legitimation of inherited wealth, a role it is profoundly unsuited to.
But Young was writing in the Britain of the 1950s; we could certainly say that the two world wars had changed the nature of British aristocracy, but frankly less than it had been changed almost anywhere else. Holding up British aristocratic traditions as an alternative doesn't really work.
Hayek, writing only a little later, also argued for inherited wealth on a similar basis to your argument: that inherited wealth provides an opportunity for weirdness and experimentation, and this is useful to society as a whole even if the median aristocrat is not especially impressive. It's a neat argument but I think it misses some important things out.
Historically, aristocrats were not especially creative. The great works of medieval architecture were mostly religious, and the institutions taking the long-time-horizon were the monasteries. Aristocrats were not, by and large, sponsoring artists, historians, or philosophers, nor were the aristocrats themselves living especially interesting lives, for the most part. Aristocrats were concerned with acquisition and retention of wealth, through war and marriage. Sometimes war justified some risk-taking, but more often the conservative principle was dominant.
Capitalism was a challenge to this worldview precisely because it made conservatism dangerous: the world was changing and merely standing still was not enough. But the British experience - which leaves a baleful impact on the culture to this day - was one in which aristocrats would alternately co-opt or crush those whose innovations might upset the order too quickly. The oppositionalism of the British class system comes from this source: a recognition that the aristocrats have done nothing to deserve being in charge, but will insist on it anyway, and will warp any system that might change things. The terrible state of British management (https://www.economicsobservatory.com/why-have-so-many-uk-companies-been-badly-managed-for-so-long) is directly downstream of this: management positions are still awarded as class perks rather than by merit; the second-order consequence is that even good managers find it hard to summon the moral authority to manage effectively, because this is a classic "market for lemons".
Grindslop is somewhat similar: it obscures the truth about what's really going on. The performance of working hard serves the same purpose as that of an elite education: it's a justification for success that can be defended in the current discourse. That it's an expensive performance which harms both the people who do it and the people who imitate it seems correct. I'd only caution that the traditional aristocracy really didn't do any better than this.
Great insight. I would go further and say that since the days of the Church, it's always been about status-signaling by insecure people. The two forms of modern aristocracy the article mentions are simply today's iteration tacitly agreed upon by their respective milieus.
For the majority in non-tech, "unenlightened" circles, the playbook has not changed: million-dollar travel packages and other lavish purchases are simply the easiest way for new money to buy their way into status according to the social class from which they came from.
Meanwhile, the ascetic workaholics look down on those still beholden to such ostentatious displays of material possession. This creates a race to the bottom among these people to see who can "suffer" the most not unlike the saint/monk-like dynamic the article highlights with parallels to the hagiography even.
The common thread across both groups is a narcissistic need to broadcast their lives to the general public and accrue an ROI in terms of social points. After all, if no one knows you suffered or booked that trip, what was it for? It may seem obvious to you and me that the "journey itself is it's own reward," but the difference between us, and such actors' psychology becomes clear in the decision whether or not to post.
The irony of it all is how true aristocrats who come from generations of family heritage have no need to share their personal lives on the internet because their place in the social hierarchy is secured not by public opinion but by private channels exclusive to their class.
Grindslop only exists because people feel the need to posture to the new class of VCs, most of which haven't actually built anything. Diff than a couple cycles ago. Also just saw the reference post right after I finished lol
this feels related to a perception I have and that I increasingly feel from those around me that there is literally nothing worth the money in this world anymore. a person with moderate wealth cannot live with moderate luxury because even the "nice" things that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, if they are made now, are made shitty, and are uncomfortable falling-apart garbage. what is the point of wealth if no amount of it will get me a comfortable bed, a car that doesn't fall apart, a house with genuine class, a life not lived in constant pointless irritation
Lots to think about here. Some points I strongly agree, and some points I have a knee jerk reaction against. I’m gonna be chewing on this for a while, and thinking about my attitudes towards my own (relative) prosperity and what attitudes I want to model for my children.
The irony of this performative, bizarre corporate martyrdom — which only masks underlying operational dysfunction — is its tired narrative: We sacrifice our lives so our product can make yours infinitely easier. Thereby stealing from others the limitless virtues of hardcoreness.
I spent twenty years dealing with these people and it’s exhausting. Multiple panic attacks and associated disorders later, I’m out of the beautiful prison trying to answer one maddeningly simple question: Can I survive outside of the very structure that built me? Can any of us? Or are we all destined to break back into the institution?
Well said, beginning of my career I started out in such a company and although it advanced my career a lot because of the immense amount of responsibility I was cast into, I noticed near the end that the founders were just talking about hard work and liked the idea of it more than actually doing it. They came from wealth which is how they funded their business, they had to convince themselves they had all that which they had because of their hard work. But after a while it became difficult to hide their incompetence. No matter how many hours they pretended to grind, it was without purpose, and thus in the end it collapsed.
Corporations are gods and the CEO is the high priest of the religion that worships and serves them. In return the gods shed their favor on the loyal followers. Exactly the same structure as roman mystery cults, except these gods actually exist. They certainly work in mysterious ways.
I think it misses why early-stage startups often require an unreasonable amount of work. Before pmf the job is not simply to execute. It is to exhaustively search. Intensity compresses the number of build measure learn loops you can run before runway disappears. YC does this in the best way. uses incentivized pressure to force founders through enough customer contact, failed hypotheses, and pivots to find the thing actually worth building. Idk if mistake is not working too hard. The mistake is likely turning a temp search strategy into a permanent identity.
When the suffering itself becomes the product, the company stops being a company and becomes a coping mechanism. The founder isn't building anything anymore - he's hiding from the question of what he'd be without the performance (no one special)
Most of humanity are the sports fans, not the players. The individuality is not the point - the collective energy is harvested and mirrored to give the people doing the important work the ability to go.
The NPCs mimicking serve as the hero’s motivation.
Wish it were not the case, but that is how humanity always has and always will work.
Let the poseurs grindslop away - it fuels the progress.
In some ways this echoes Michael Young's point about meritocracy: that it establishes some set of credentials by which people can claim to deserve their wealth, and so those with wealth will pursue those credentials. This warps both the wealthy themselves (they have to make a claim which is either untrue or at least unrepresentative of the reality) and the credentialing system, which takes on the role of legitimation of inherited wealth, a role it is profoundly unsuited to.
But Young was writing in the Britain of the 1950s; we could certainly say that the two world wars had changed the nature of British aristocracy, but frankly less than it had been changed almost anywhere else. Holding up British aristocratic traditions as an alternative doesn't really work.
Hayek, writing only a little later, also argued for inherited wealth on a similar basis to your argument: that inherited wealth provides an opportunity for weirdness and experimentation, and this is useful to society as a whole even if the median aristocrat is not especially impressive. It's a neat argument but I think it misses some important things out.
Historically, aristocrats were not especially creative. The great works of medieval architecture were mostly religious, and the institutions taking the long-time-horizon were the monasteries. Aristocrats were not, by and large, sponsoring artists, historians, or philosophers, nor were the aristocrats themselves living especially interesting lives, for the most part. Aristocrats were concerned with acquisition and retention of wealth, through war and marriage. Sometimes war justified some risk-taking, but more often the conservative principle was dominant.
Capitalism was a challenge to this worldview precisely because it made conservatism dangerous: the world was changing and merely standing still was not enough. But the British experience - which leaves a baleful impact on the culture to this day - was one in which aristocrats would alternately co-opt or crush those whose innovations might upset the order too quickly. The oppositionalism of the British class system comes from this source: a recognition that the aristocrats have done nothing to deserve being in charge, but will insist on it anyway, and will warp any system that might change things. The terrible state of British management (https://www.economicsobservatory.com/why-have-so-many-uk-companies-been-badly-managed-for-so-long) is directly downstream of this: management positions are still awarded as class perks rather than by merit; the second-order consequence is that even good managers find it hard to summon the moral authority to manage effectively, because this is a classic "market for lemons".
Grindslop is somewhat similar: it obscures the truth about what's really going on. The performance of working hard serves the same purpose as that of an elite education: it's a justification for success that can be defended in the current discourse. That it's an expensive performance which harms both the people who do it and the people who imitate it seems correct. I'd only caution that the traditional aristocracy really didn't do any better than this.
Great insight. I would go further and say that since the days of the Church, it's always been about status-signaling by insecure people. The two forms of modern aristocracy the article mentions are simply today's iteration tacitly agreed upon by their respective milieus.
For the majority in non-tech, "unenlightened" circles, the playbook has not changed: million-dollar travel packages and other lavish purchases are simply the easiest way for new money to buy their way into status according to the social class from which they came from.
Meanwhile, the ascetic workaholics look down on those still beholden to such ostentatious displays of material possession. This creates a race to the bottom among these people to see who can "suffer" the most not unlike the saint/monk-like dynamic the article highlights with parallels to the hagiography even.
The common thread across both groups is a narcissistic need to broadcast their lives to the general public and accrue an ROI in terms of social points. After all, if no one knows you suffered or booked that trip, what was it for? It may seem obvious to you and me that the "journey itself is it's own reward," but the difference between us, and such actors' psychology becomes clear in the decision whether or not to post.
The irony of it all is how true aristocrats who come from generations of family heritage have no need to share their personal lives on the internet because their place in the social hierarchy is secured not by public opinion but by private channels exclusive to their class.
Man this was too good
Grindslop only exists because people feel the need to posture to the new class of VCs, most of which haven't actually built anything. Diff than a couple cycles ago. Also just saw the reference post right after I finished lol
this feels related to a perception I have and that I increasingly feel from those around me that there is literally nothing worth the money in this world anymore. a person with moderate wealth cannot live with moderate luxury because even the "nice" things that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, if they are made now, are made shitty, and are uncomfortable falling-apart garbage. what is the point of wealth if no amount of it will get me a comfortable bed, a car that doesn't fall apart, a house with genuine class, a life not lived in constant pointless irritation
Lots to think about here. Some points I strongly agree, and some points I have a knee jerk reaction against. I’m gonna be chewing on this for a while, and thinking about my attitudes towards my own (relative) prosperity and what attitudes I want to model for my children.
The irony of this performative, bizarre corporate martyrdom — which only masks underlying operational dysfunction — is its tired narrative: We sacrifice our lives so our product can make yours infinitely easier. Thereby stealing from others the limitless virtues of hardcoreness.
I spent twenty years dealing with these people and it’s exhausting. Multiple panic attacks and associated disorders later, I’m out of the beautiful prison trying to answer one maddeningly simple question: Can I survive outside of the very structure that built me? Can any of us? Or are we all destined to break back into the institution?
Good read here. Worth the time.
Well said, beginning of my career I started out in such a company and although it advanced my career a lot because of the immense amount of responsibility I was cast into, I noticed near the end that the founders were just talking about hard work and liked the idea of it more than actually doing it. They came from wealth which is how they funded their business, they had to convince themselves they had all that which they had because of their hard work. But after a while it became difficult to hide their incompetence. No matter how many hours they pretended to grind, it was without purpose, and thus in the end it collapsed.
This is so well constructed, to an intimidating degree. Going to be returning to this piece more than once
Corporations are gods and the CEO is the high priest of the religion that worships and serves them. In return the gods shed their favor on the loyal followers. Exactly the same structure as roman mystery cults, except these gods actually exist. They certainly work in mysterious ways.
Banger
This is one of the best articles on Substack.
I think it misses why early-stage startups often require an unreasonable amount of work. Before pmf the job is not simply to execute. It is to exhaustively search. Intensity compresses the number of build measure learn loops you can run before runway disappears. YC does this in the best way. uses incentivized pressure to force founders through enough customer contact, failed hypotheses, and pivots to find the thing actually worth building. Idk if mistake is not working too hard. The mistake is likely turning a temp search strategy into a permanent identity.
When the suffering itself becomes the product, the company stops being a company and becomes a coping mechanism. The founder isn't building anything anymore - he's hiding from the question of what he'd be without the performance (no one special)
This was very amusing Will. We love an insight here at gowtywood and your instinctive grasp of the Wu bodes well for your future.
Fuck, what a great piece of writing.
Beautifully written, poetic, and wrong.
Most of humanity are the sports fans, not the players. The individuality is not the point - the collective energy is harvested and mirrored to give the people doing the important work the ability to go.
The NPCs mimicking serve as the hero’s motivation.
Wish it were not the case, but that is how humanity always has and always will work.
Let the poseurs grindslop away - it fuels the progress.