Anu Atluru | Substack
Paul Graham, the founder of a startup incubator and mentor to thousands of young people, sees this attention as a trap. In his view, prestige is “a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy.”12
Paul Millerd • The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life
Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like.
Paul Graham • How to Do What You Love
Now, our competitions for prestige often produce positive side effects such as art, science, and technological innovation.16 But the prestige-seeking itself is more nearly a zero-sum game, which helps explain why we sometimes feel pangs of envy at even a close friend’s success.