For years, I've been obsessed with a philosopher named René Girard.
This is one of the best lessons I learned:
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Studying Girard made me see how much the drive for prestige shapes our ambitions. He forced me to ask myself: “What opportunities can’t I see because they’re not prestigious enough?”
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The very best opportunities are rarely prestigious when there’s big money to be made with them. In my experience, the lust for prestige is the strongest amongst high-status people.
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When looking for jobs, children from high-status families tend to value prestige the most. In another world, these people would take bets on exciting, but non-prestigious projects with big upside.
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My friend nailed it, when he wrote: "You don't really outperform your peers with quality per se, you outperform your peers by finding underpriced quality that others don’t judge to be valuable.”
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Despite the financial rewards, few people are willing to work on low-status projects, even if they have big upside. For example, most of the people who are jumping into Bitcoin now weren’t willing to commit a few years ago, back when people scoffed at the idea of digital money.
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Only after reading Girard did I realize the dangers of chasing too much prestige. The worst rivalries, he said, come when people aren’t competing for a physical object. It’s no coincidence that the Latin word for prestige is "praestigiae," which translates to illusion or mirage.
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Girard's philosophy teaches us that the world is filled with under-priced opportunities that are only available to people who are comfortable with promising, but low-status projects.
Beware of chasing prestige.
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Here's a lecture I just published with about Girard's work.
We set out to create an accessible, but comprehensive synopsis of Girard's philosophy, and you can watch it for free on YouTube.
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The first lecture is a high-level overview of Girard's philosophy. We recorded six more lectures and will be releasing one per month for the rest of the year.
Sign up below to hear about the lectures by email.
“Better than boring alone is a stock that’s boring and disgusting at the same time. Something that makes people shrug, retch, or turn away in disgust is ideal” - This quote by Peter Lynch on the stocks he loved to own came to mind
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