For years, I've been studying a philosopher named René Girard.
He showed me how much the drive for prestige shapes our ambitions, and pushed me to ask: “What opportunities am I missing because they’re not prestigious enough?”
In my experience, the lust for prestige is the strongest amongst high-status people. 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.
But here’s the thing: the very best opportunities are rarely prestigious.
My friend @jmrphy 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.”
The less prestigious an opportunity, the more likely it is to be underpriced.
And yet, 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 now hopping on the Artificial Intelligence bandwagon weren’t willing to commit before the boom started.
Girard's philosophy reveals how 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.

In my experience, the lost for prestige doesn’t fully go away. It’s too deeply ingrained in our psyche and social infrastructure to completely disappear. But by recognizing it, you can tame it. Better to be ruled by conscious choices instead of unconscious desires.