Even failed startup founders outrank employees at successful companies

Evidence

The highest position on the status hierarchy is reserved for entrepreneurs. As one high-ranking social media executive who preferred to remain anonymous explained: “Even if you’re not going to make money it’s like other people will give you more respect if you’ve started a company than if you’re an employee. A lot of the employees are really important and they, a lot of [the] time, add more value to the world as an employee than they would as a founder of a company that isn’t going to go anywhere.” Even founding an unsuccessful company can lead to higher status than working at a successful company. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 182

Categorization

• XREF: Links to labor and entrepreneurship literature on the ideology of risk-taking and the valorization of founders over stable employment. — connects to: Founder status within a decade displaced stable employment as the cool option — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 182
• SEED: Article angle: the prestige economy that rewards failure when framed as entrepreneurship — founding beats working even when the founder’s venture fails.

Broader Connections

• Founder status within a decade displaced stable employment as the cool option #contradicts (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 182