Danielle Vermeer

Secret downloads page for top Andrew Chen writing.

One of the biggest motivators we observe is the power of subcultural capital - or what we call the “hipster incentive”. It’s an important interpretation of Bordieau’s work on the value of cultural capital in defining our position within society -- the hipster incentive is grounded in our need for status or social capital.

Staying within a range of acceptable tolerance in your life should be the goal, so that you flourish in all dimensions, not just the professional. Taking on too much pushes us into zones of intolerance, where very little life can be sustained.

The bind experienced by the “nouveau riche.” Although these upwardly mobile individuals may have the economic capital to adopt elite culture, they continually reveal their social origins by the “mistakes” they make in their execution of taste, or the insecurity of their conduct

It’s not that people don’t want to work. It’s that their jobs feel, for whatever reason, unsustainable: unsustainable for their mental and physical health, but also unsustainable for their family, and their longterm survival. Many people actually really like the work that they do, if they were, indeed, allocating the bulk of their time to doing... See more