Dylan's journey from unknown to icon illuminates a broader truth about success: networks matter, and access to them is becoming increasingly restricted.
This was really incredible Alexander! I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan, and I love reading and writing about housing. I'd never really thought about network effects to this extent. I guess in my head success seems so social media driven right now, that you forget about the boots-on-the-ground growing. Going to give this a re-read. Great stuff!
Lucas, I wanted to thank you. This comment made my day. What's your favorite Dylan song? Mine is probably Mr. Tambourine Man but I had this monstrous and somewhat inexplicable Jokerman phase where I listened to that song everyday on repeat for a few months, it was a wild time!
The self-reinforcing aspect of elite institutions is interesting to me. I just wrote a post about consulting and finance's relationship with elite colleges; colleges want wealthy and high prestige graduates and so are more than happy to provide finance shops and consultancies premium access to their students. Since so many elite students end up in these industries, they are perceived as high-status and the feedback loop repeats.
The general gist is true and well written, i.e that networks matter, and cities and education are two of the most important entry points. But you might be more clear on the solutions, because I think even without the grounding of networks, most people support housing and education being ubiquitously accessible.
The process of restriction, it follows less explicit paths, and many distractions from solving the root causes. False villains are one such distraction, for example landlords. It's not because all landlords are great, or that at even an average level I can attest to them being equal or better than the average human being. But they don't have the power necessary to either fix housing costs nor create the restrictive markets that have developed. The villain must be elsewhere. It's tempting to want to be able to visualize our villains as pure-evil psychopaths; but in reality, the real villains here will seem like nice people on any average day, in some sense are nice people, and are a much wider group than landlords.
To make housing more accessible, we need more of it, where it's needed. And in terms of networks, that means building in a style that enable high connection networks. Elite networks may always be elite, but the best way to avoid elite stability is giving others the tools to build competing networks, and cities are a lot more amenable to that than alternatives living patterns. Not everyone will sign up for that, and thus they'll unfortunately miss out on the advantages cities can bring, but at least they'll have had the option. And don't forget those that did opt-in.
Education somewhat will solve itself, if we talk about education only. Access to a quality education is already much more accessible, and I think will continue to be so. Whether we keep our attachments to the status networks attached to them is a different question, and that one is more based on how people hire, evaluate others, and refuse to or force others to play status games for access to jobs, positions, and other opportunities.
I agree with everything you said except for your last point. What do you mean education somewhat will solve itself? I fear that education, the kind that equips students, especially those without the privilege of wealth or networks, is less accessible than we think.
Sure public universities are accessible, but K-12 outcomes are quite abysmal when it comes to preparing kids for degrees that leads to stable middle class lives.
I can't believe I read the whole thing! My personal opinion is that success has nothing to do with who you know or which school/uni you go to or how wealthy you are. And being famous and well-known may not necessarily be a blessing. Staying under the radar may be a bigger blessing. I love Tasha Tudor's work and I think she's a top-level artist. She lived in a countryside and just grew flowers and did her paintings yet and her work still reached millions and loved by millions. Why? She created her work for love and she didn't even need any network or connections - the connections found her deep in the country. If you are a diamond, you shine anywhere. People come to you to see your work and they demand to publish your work, you don't need to worry about going anywhere. When Anita Moorjani was ready to publish her work, Hay House found her despite all odds - she didn't need to contact any agency. Money is not an issue either. When you vibrate at a high enough level of frequency, money finds you. Every artists' life plan is different. Some artists they may look like they are at the right place and know the right people and have the right network, but those things were all in their pre-birth planning it was mathematically precise it was always meant to happen that way. We do not decide those details - a lot of things were decided before we were born (yes, we were told that before we were born too and we planned that for ourselves too).
True art always requires squatting. The real artist has no means to pay for housing, because their critique runs counter to the interests of those who might otherwise support them.
This was really incredible Alexander! I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan, and I love reading and writing about housing. I'd never really thought about network effects to this extent. I guess in my head success seems so social media driven right now, that you forget about the boots-on-the-ground growing. Going to give this a re-read. Great stuff!
Lucas, I wanted to thank you. This comment made my day. What's your favorite Dylan song? Mine is probably Mr. Tambourine Man but I had this monstrous and somewhat inexplicable Jokerman phase where I listened to that song everyday on repeat for a few months, it was a wild time!
Congrats on finishing your doctorate. Great post.
The self-reinforcing aspect of elite institutions is interesting to me. I just wrote a post about consulting and finance's relationship with elite colleges; colleges want wealthy and high prestige graduates and so are more than happy to provide finance shops and consultancies premium access to their students. Since so many elite students end up in these industries, they are perceived as high-status and the feedback loop repeats.
Thank you so much for the kind comment. I’d love to read it, feel free to reply with the link! Sounds like a very important and similar phenomenon
https://passingtime.substack.com/p/valuable-but-not-productive
The general gist is true and well written, i.e that networks matter, and cities and education are two of the most important entry points. But you might be more clear on the solutions, because I think even without the grounding of networks, most people support housing and education being ubiquitously accessible.
The process of restriction, it follows less explicit paths, and many distractions from solving the root causes. False villains are one such distraction, for example landlords. It's not because all landlords are great, or that at even an average level I can attest to them being equal or better than the average human being. But they don't have the power necessary to either fix housing costs nor create the restrictive markets that have developed. The villain must be elsewhere. It's tempting to want to be able to visualize our villains as pure-evil psychopaths; but in reality, the real villains here will seem like nice people on any average day, in some sense are nice people, and are a much wider group than landlords.
To make housing more accessible, we need more of it, where it's needed. And in terms of networks, that means building in a style that enable high connection networks. Elite networks may always be elite, but the best way to avoid elite stability is giving others the tools to build competing networks, and cities are a lot more amenable to that than alternatives living patterns. Not everyone will sign up for that, and thus they'll unfortunately miss out on the advantages cities can bring, but at least they'll have had the option. And don't forget those that did opt-in.
Education somewhat will solve itself, if we talk about education only. Access to a quality education is already much more accessible, and I think will continue to be so. Whether we keep our attachments to the status networks attached to them is a different question, and that one is more based on how people hire, evaluate others, and refuse to or force others to play status games for access to jobs, positions, and other opportunities.
I agree with everything you said except for your last point. What do you mean education somewhat will solve itself? I fear that education, the kind that equips students, especially those without the privilege of wealth or networks, is less accessible than we think.
Sure public universities are accessible, but K-12 outcomes are quite abysmal when it comes to preparing kids for degrees that leads to stable middle class lives.
I can't believe I read the whole thing! My personal opinion is that success has nothing to do with who you know or which school/uni you go to or how wealthy you are. And being famous and well-known may not necessarily be a blessing. Staying under the radar may be a bigger blessing. I love Tasha Tudor's work and I think she's a top-level artist. She lived in a countryside and just grew flowers and did her paintings yet and her work still reached millions and loved by millions. Why? She created her work for love and she didn't even need any network or connections - the connections found her deep in the country. If you are a diamond, you shine anywhere. People come to you to see your work and they demand to publish your work, you don't need to worry about going anywhere. When Anita Moorjani was ready to publish her work, Hay House found her despite all odds - she didn't need to contact any agency. Money is not an issue either. When you vibrate at a high enough level of frequency, money finds you. Every artists' life plan is different. Some artists they may look like they are at the right place and know the right people and have the right network, but those things were all in their pre-birth planning it was mathematically precise it was always meant to happen that way. We do not decide those details - a lot of things were decided before we were born (yes, we were told that before we were born too and we planned that for ourselves too).
True art always requires squatting. The real artist has no means to pay for housing, because their critique runs counter to the interests of those who might otherwise support them.