This was a great read, Hannah. The status vs. income tradeoff is definitely real, but IMO it can also come with a third variable most new grads don't price in: optionality. The low-status high-income path buys you time to figure out what you actually want to do. The high-status path locks you into performing a version of success you may not have chosen for yourself. if you had considered it more carefully and explored your options.
thank you Lindsey! that's SUCH a good way to look at it. it's so funny bc i always used to think the high status path gave more optionality, when in reality it gives you the illusion of optionality because most ppl don't actually take it!
I like how you framed it. I used to work at a startup : high status, high income. Always performing while feeling something was off. But couldn’t pinpoint it, since I had no time for examination.
Since I’ve burned out, I’ve had time to think, chose a lower status job and found a more fulfilling path.
And I’m exploring other revenue streams to first match then overcome my previous salary
Super interesting take! I had never realized that I shifted from a high-status to a low-status career. But I definitely could do that because I was in a high-status career before, and this helped to keep a good level of income
thanks for the article hannah, thinking out loud here -- status feels like an odd word to describe the things that you've described and doesn't sit well with me, and I realise it's a bit of two things 1) i may be younger than the target audience for this newsletter and grew up/gained consciousness in a world that very strongly advertised the occupations in the low status high income quadrant. time and time again the loud voices on the internet tell me that all other quadrants are doomed to hell and this bottom right is the only place to be, and so I've never ever seen it as low status, just perhaps a field with a lot of noise attached 2) i grew up in an asian household where status does not exist on its own but is solely a function of income. if it is high income, it is high status. if it is low income, it is low status. you cannot have one or the other because it's the income which justifies the value (regardless of whether it's actually beneficial or detrimental) and dollars earned after tax is the second most relevant score to your value as a human (with the most relevant dollars earned after tax of your child lol). the ends justifies the means.
if I told my parents I want to go for one of those jobs in the top-left quadrant they would shoot me in the foot, and if I told them I wanted to do one of the bottom right they would shoot me in the other foot - until the level of income justified itself, in which they would very reluctantly apologise.
now I'm not sure what word I would use in place of 'status' in this framework but it's an oddly dynamic chart here because it begs the question of if you could only have one, which one would you really prioritise? is it income? is it status? are these different to wealth? and if any of these come at the cost of say the relationships and leisure in your life - is it worth it? i still believe there's a lot of murkiness, asymmerty, and surely survivorship bias in the camp of bottom-right but let's just say I'd like to learn about these, you know - not from the already wildly successful like the fashion substacker with $275k (huh??) but from the one who's just a few steps ahead*, balancing it with the personal life... and it's through these stories that I really learn about what nonlinear paths are possible.
* excluding accounts who solely talk about how to grow your account, sorry!
I'm so confused. How is content creator low status when a huge percentage of kids say they want to be influencers when they grow up and the entire way that you monetise content creation is by monetising social clout ie status? Are you saying Mr Beast and Anna Newton (to pick two wildly disparate examples) are low status?!
haha this is something I actually talk about in the piece itself! Low status eventually becomes high status once you've "made it", but I'd argue the VAST majority of content creators are still seen as low status, especially coming from the business/finance world that I'm writing from:
The endpoint of this shift is when the originally low status jobs start getting perceived as high status.
That’s already happening. 68% of Gen Alpha want to be content creators. I had dozens of angry commenters on my videos saying I was ridiculous for calling content creation “low status”.
I guess it always depends what lens you look through, but for me from the perspective of what gets people thinking you are cool at a dinner party, working in business or finance is not the one! Being a creative of any kind always gets kudos. I think being rich has its own status and that is why biz and finance jobs have status. Depends on the circles you move in, of course...!
That makes sense! I agree creatives/artists are seen as high status (although often low income), I’d say most content creators haven’t reached that threshold though. It’s the 0.01% of creators that get the lions share of attention and bias public perception
For sure. But all creative professions have a very steep curve with a tiny few achieving real success and most not earning enough for it to be a full time job. The existence of Bob Dylan is why young men strum guitars to appeal to the girls they've a crush on. Doesn't matter if they've made or sold a record. The posture of creativity is cultural capital.
I'm a tax accountant who works with people from every quadrant. I love the overall 2x2 comparison and I agree that low status, high income is the place to be.
I do take issue with the sorting of some careers. YouTube has been filled with finance influencers in the last 10 years who say the path to riches is a variety of trendy side hustles. Drop shipping, real estate, multiple income streams, crypto, etc. Typically they are presented as a relatively low-effort or passive way to create wealth in a relatively short period of time.
I've seen a few people create reasonable income streams with some of these. A few thousand to tens of thousands in Amazon profit. 5-30k per year profit on a rental. Typically these income streams come hand in hand with everyday hard work of not just building but maintaining the enterprise. The opposite of passive income. They could reasonably be described as low-status.
I've also seen a lot of people lose their shirts. Tech bros who decide to day trade, lose money, and refuse to cut their losses because they can subsidize their losses with their salary. Random 55 year olds feeling insecure about their nest egg and moving it all into crypto, where 50% of the time they lose their shirts. Or 100% of the time, if the mentor they trusted was a scammer who steered them to a fake crypto web site. And maybe the worst: everyday people trying to start a business, pour in their sweat and blood and tears and startup funds, and it just doesn't take off for a variety of reasons
I do enjoy seeing the ones who make it. Often these are the low-status, high income tradesmen, or the mid-status, mid-income public service workers: teachers, municipal employees, cops, nurses. They live in modest houses and drive reasonable cars, and they have a pension, or put part of their paycheck into a 401k with sensible investments that grows, year after year, enough to help them retire wealthy.
Dave Ramsey calls these people "everyday millionaires", and I can attest that they are real and they are common.
I love this. And I think (?) it was in Outliers (?) that Malcolm Gladwell argues those who get into low status, high income careers are basically just riding the wave until it becomes high status, high income. And then they rule the class. Here for it
I've never read Outliers now I (finally) want to - exactly, i got a lot of heat from people saying content creators aren't low status, so I guess among some circles that tide is already starting to turn
Super interesting framing, thanks for sharing! I just recently quit my product management job and am now exploring content creation primarily as a way to nurture my creativity but the possibility of earning income from it is also in the back of my mind. I'd love to hear any insights you have from high status/high income earners transitioning to low status/high income if you have any!
I liked this piece! But, the jobs you list at the bottom are not representative of low status high income. Not sure if you meant them to be but those are clearly high status high income roles
This was a good read. I would say that the high status low income roles also have higher perceived meaning and impact. The lawyers I know who don’t work corporate but do things like crime and family don’t make much but find the work markedly more meaningful than the corporate / Big Law types.
I’m focused on low status high income work now so that I can (in theory) create enough wealth and financial freedom to do a low income high status role as my final work chapter.
Loved this Hannah. I’m in the low status high income quadrant after years of not being in it, and it’s quietly so liberating. I have a post scheduled on ‘why do we measure success so crudely’ which has some parallels.
This was a great read, Hannah. The status vs. income tradeoff is definitely real, but IMO it can also come with a third variable most new grads don't price in: optionality. The low-status high-income path buys you time to figure out what you actually want to do. The high-status path locks you into performing a version of success you may not have chosen for yourself. if you had considered it more carefully and explored your options.
thank you Lindsey! that's SUCH a good way to look at it. it's so funny bc i always used to think the high status path gave more optionality, when in reality it gives you the illusion of optionality because most ppl don't actually take it!
Yesss exactly!! I’d say I’m also on a very unconventional path but it’s given me so so so much more optionality than a standard one would have!
I like how you framed it. I used to work at a startup : high status, high income. Always performing while feeling something was off. But couldn’t pinpoint it, since I had no time for examination.
Since I’ve burned out, I’ve had time to think, chose a lower status job and found a more fulfilling path.
And I’m exploring other revenue streams to first match then overcome my previous salary
glad to hear it!
So well said!
Thank you!
This was such an original framing with the status-income matrix that I was thinking further and went a bit deeper into my career and how others can use it figure out what they want in my newsletter in case you’re interested! https://otwup.substack.com/p/how-to-win-at-life-without-working-at-goldman?r=16w7zt&
Super interesting take! I had never realized that I shifted from a high-status to a low-status career. But I definitely could do that because I was in a high-status career before, and this helped to keep a good level of income
Totally - high status gives you an advantage when you switch
This was such an original framing that I’ve been thinking about this status-income matrix further and went a bit deeper into my career and how others can use it figure out what they want in my newsletter in case you’re interested! https://otwup.substack.com/p/how-to-win-at-life-without-working-at-goldman?r=16w7zt&
LOVE!
thanks for the article hannah, thinking out loud here -- status feels like an odd word to describe the things that you've described and doesn't sit well with me, and I realise it's a bit of two things 1) i may be younger than the target audience for this newsletter and grew up/gained consciousness in a world that very strongly advertised the occupations in the low status high income quadrant. time and time again the loud voices on the internet tell me that all other quadrants are doomed to hell and this bottom right is the only place to be, and so I've never ever seen it as low status, just perhaps a field with a lot of noise attached 2) i grew up in an asian household where status does not exist on its own but is solely a function of income. if it is high income, it is high status. if it is low income, it is low status. you cannot have one or the other because it's the income which justifies the value (regardless of whether it's actually beneficial or detrimental) and dollars earned after tax is the second most relevant score to your value as a human (with the most relevant dollars earned after tax of your child lol). the ends justifies the means.
if I told my parents I want to go for one of those jobs in the top-left quadrant they would shoot me in the foot, and if I told them I wanted to do one of the bottom right they would shoot me in the other foot - until the level of income justified itself, in which they would very reluctantly apologise.
now I'm not sure what word I would use in place of 'status' in this framework but it's an oddly dynamic chart here because it begs the question of if you could only have one, which one would you really prioritise? is it income? is it status? are these different to wealth? and if any of these come at the cost of say the relationships and leisure in your life - is it worth it? i still believe there's a lot of murkiness, asymmerty, and surely survivorship bias in the camp of bottom-right but let's just say I'd like to learn about these, you know - not from the already wildly successful like the fashion substacker with $275k (huh??) but from the one who's just a few steps ahead*, balancing it with the personal life... and it's through these stories that I really learn about what nonlinear paths are possible.
* excluding accounts who solely talk about how to grow your account, sorry!
I'm so confused. How is content creator low status when a huge percentage of kids say they want to be influencers when they grow up and the entire way that you monetise content creation is by monetising social clout ie status? Are you saying Mr Beast and Anna Newton (to pick two wildly disparate examples) are low status?!
haha this is something I actually talk about in the piece itself! Low status eventually becomes high status once you've "made it", but I'd argue the VAST majority of content creators are still seen as low status, especially coming from the business/finance world that I'm writing from:
The endpoint of this shift is when the originally low status jobs start getting perceived as high status.
That’s already happening. 68% of Gen Alpha want to be content creators. I had dozens of angry commenters on my videos saying I was ridiculous for calling content creation “low status”.
I guess it always depends what lens you look through, but for me from the perspective of what gets people thinking you are cool at a dinner party, working in business or finance is not the one! Being a creative of any kind always gets kudos. I think being rich has its own status and that is why biz and finance jobs have status. Depends on the circles you move in, of course...!
That makes sense! I agree creatives/artists are seen as high status (although often low income), I’d say most content creators haven’t reached that threshold though. It’s the 0.01% of creators that get the lions share of attention and bias public perception
For sure. But all creative professions have a very steep curve with a tiny few achieving real success and most not earning enough for it to be a full time job. The existence of Bob Dylan is why young men strum guitars to appeal to the girls they've a crush on. Doesn't matter if they've made or sold a record. The posture of creativity is cultural capital.
Have you seen how much electricians or plumbers make? I think you might have blue collar folks in the wrong category.
I'm a tax accountant who works with people from every quadrant. I love the overall 2x2 comparison and I agree that low status, high income is the place to be.
I do take issue with the sorting of some careers. YouTube has been filled with finance influencers in the last 10 years who say the path to riches is a variety of trendy side hustles. Drop shipping, real estate, multiple income streams, crypto, etc. Typically they are presented as a relatively low-effort or passive way to create wealth in a relatively short period of time.
I've seen a few people create reasonable income streams with some of these. A few thousand to tens of thousands in Amazon profit. 5-30k per year profit on a rental. Typically these income streams come hand in hand with everyday hard work of not just building but maintaining the enterprise. The opposite of passive income. They could reasonably be described as low-status.
I've also seen a lot of people lose their shirts. Tech bros who decide to day trade, lose money, and refuse to cut their losses because they can subsidize their losses with their salary. Random 55 year olds feeling insecure about their nest egg and moving it all into crypto, where 50% of the time they lose their shirts. Or 100% of the time, if the mentor they trusted was a scammer who steered them to a fake crypto web site. And maybe the worst: everyday people trying to start a business, pour in their sweat and blood and tears and startup funds, and it just doesn't take off for a variety of reasons
I do enjoy seeing the ones who make it. Often these are the low-status, high income tradesmen, or the mid-status, mid-income public service workers: teachers, municipal employees, cops, nurses. They live in modest houses and drive reasonable cars, and they have a pension, or put part of their paycheck into a 401k with sensible investments that grows, year after year, enough to help them retire wealthy.
Dave Ramsey calls these people "everyday millionaires", and I can attest that they are real and they are common.
I love this. And I think (?) it was in Outliers (?) that Malcolm Gladwell argues those who get into low status, high income careers are basically just riding the wave until it becomes high status, high income. And then they rule the class. Here for it
I've never read Outliers now I (finally) want to - exactly, i got a lot of heat from people saying content creators aren't low status, so I guess among some circles that tide is already starting to turn
I guess th status of content creators is highly dependent on the type of content they produce?
that's why the mbas and pe companies are acquiring low status, high income companies now.
as we mature, our inner security increases and need for status decreases.
Well said
The matrix is almost as entertaining as BCG matrix and the hot/crazy matrix
Haha I know the hot crazy matrix but what’s the BCG one
https://profdrarunbhatia.blogspot.com/2024/04/bcg-matrix.html?m=1
Very valid! Wonder how the vector of ‘societal/planet utility’ is mapping onto these.
Super interesting framing, thanks for sharing! I just recently quit my product management job and am now exploring content creation primarily as a way to nurture my creativity but the possibility of earning income from it is also in the back of my mind. I'd love to hear any insights you have from high status/high income earners transitioning to low status/high income if you have any!
Excited for you! More content to come
I liked this piece! But, the jobs you list at the bottom are not representative of low status high income. Not sure if you meant them to be but those are clearly high status high income roles
Depends on the world you come from!! These are def all low status in my world (coming from finance, tech, business etc)
This was a good read. I would say that the high status low income roles also have higher perceived meaning and impact. The lawyers I know who don’t work corporate but do things like crime and family don’t make much but find the work markedly more meaningful than the corporate / Big Law types.
I’m focused on low status high income work now so that I can (in theory) create enough wealth and financial freedom to do a low income high status role as my final work chapter.
Loved this Hannah. I’m in the low status high income quadrant after years of not being in it, and it’s quietly so liberating. I have a post scheduled on ‘why do we measure success so crudely’ which has some parallels.