Tech insiders maintain a clear status ladder from talkers to exited founders

Evidence

I almost say that the people are futuristic. They’re from the future. They’re like, “Oh, did you just, did you Twitter that? Did you Twitter this?” They just seem so up to date. Twitter is a phenomenon inside itself, but people are just so up to date. Even for me, when I first started here, it was very intimidating. Now, I kind of feel like I’ve caught up. But, for someone new jumping in, they would be totally bombarded and overwhelmed with it. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 599 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The tech scene is very much a publicly articulated social network, in that social media like Twitter makes it easy to see who is connected to whom. Databases like CrunchBase extend informal social connections to funding and investment, as tech insiders attempt to drum up “angel investment” for their projects from wealthy friends. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 202 (#expands, via linked claim)

I also wished to test the theory that social media was providing new, meritocratic opportunities for visibility and success. There certainly are people who can attribute much of their professional success to tools like blogs and Twitter. In September 2008, I was squeezing through a crowded party for the social media blog Mashable when I met Stowe Boyd. Boyd, wearing a Kangol hat and a white beard, was a Silicon Valley veteran and blogger. In the first five minutes I met him, he told me that he had been blogging for ten years; had invented the term “social tool” and was the top Google result for the phrase; and had 90,000 visitors a month on his three blogs. Boyd, a consummate self-promoter and connector, despises the term “self-branding.” Yet he’s good at it. He exemplifies the entrepreneurial self, one who harnesses social media’s broadcasting ability to its fullest extent. Boyd knew everyone in the scene, and during our interview gave me lengthy, detailed descriptions, and critiques, of its movers and shakers. His blog contains thoughtful commentary and analysis of social software; in another life, he might have been an academic. Yet his professional accomplishments did not include starting a company, garnering funding, or writing popular software. Boyd, through sheer force of will, successful networking, and strategic use of social media, had positioned himself as an expert and tech scene heavyweight, and those around him seemed happy to accept his take on things. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 718 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Elite tech status requires acceptance by a small closed inner network — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 202; Being perpetually current on Twitter marks insider status in hyper-tech culture. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 599; Tech status hierarchies are made visible and reinforced through public digital connections — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 202 (+2 more)

Related

• The supposedly egalitarian tech scene has an explicit insider status hierarchy (similarity 0.86)
• Tech status hierarchies are made visible and reinforced through public digital connections (similarity 0.83)
• Social media can build professional status without conventional business accomplishments (similarity 0.82)
• Tech culture encodes status hierarchies that shape the social software it builds (similarity 0.82)
• Tech scene status symbols encode insiderness, skilled early adoption, and network access (similarity 0.81)
• Being perpetually current on Twitter marks insider status in hyper-tech culture. (similarity 0.80)
• Elite tech status requires acceptance by a small closed inner network (similarity 0.79)
• Within tech culture, status must arrive as innovation, not as self-marketing (similarity 0.79)
• Technology scene status is conferred through one’s position in business (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Being perpetually current on Twitter marks insider status in hyper-tech culture. #corroborates (0.82) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 599
• Tech status hierarchies are made visible and reinforced through public digital connections #expands (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 202
• Social media can build professional status without conventional business accomplishments #corroborates (0.78) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 718