Sunday morning, December 14th. Watching someone brag about their LinkedIn follower count to a group that includes a researcher with 50 citations from Nobel laureates. The researcher says nothing. The high-follower person has no idea they're playing a different game on a different board.

The Illegibility Problem

Here's the pattern: In every domain, real status is invisible to outsiders.

What outsiders see:

  • Follower counts
  • Job titles
  • Credentials listed on websites
  • Press mentions
  • Speaking gigs
  • Book deals

What insiders recognize:

  • Who gets phone calls from the best people
  • Whose papers get read pre-publication
  • Who gets invited to small dinners
  • Whose opinion changes decisions
  • Who the top people learn from
  • Who gets offered opportunities before they're public

The problem: These two status hierarchies are almost completely orthogonal.

Thesis: Status divides into legible markers (visible to everyone) and illegible markers (visible only to insiders). Because legible status is easier to measure and pursue, people over-optimize for it—getting lots of Twitter followers instead of respect from the best practitioners, prestigious job titles instead of actual influence, credentials instead of capability. This misallocation is individually rational (legible status is easier to acquire and display) but produces a strange world where the highest-status people in any field are often invisible to outsiders, and the most visible people are often mid-level players optimizing for the wrong game.

The Legible-Illegible Split

What makes status illegible?

1. Context Dependence

The pattern: Real status markers require context to decode.

Example from academia:

  • Legible: "I have 10,000 citations"
  • Illegible: "I have 50 citations, but 10 are from the founders of the field"

Why it's illegible: You need to know who the founders are, what their citation patterns mean, and how unusual it is for them to cite someone. Outsiders just see "50 << 10,000."

Example from startups:

  • Legible: "I raised $10M"
  • Illegible: "Marc Andreessen texts me directly about product ideas"

Why it's illegible: You need to know who Marc is, that he doesn't text most founders, and what his attention signifies. Outsiders just see a funding amount.

2. Private Information

The pattern: The best status signals happen in private.

What high status looks like:

  • Getting asked to advise on others' projects
  • Being consulted before decisions
  • Getting introduced to key people
  • Receiving opportunities pre-announcement
  • Having your work shared in private channels

Why this is invisible: It happens in DMs, private dinners, invite-only Slacks, one-on-one conversations. No public record. No metric to display.

The result: The highest-status people often have unremarkable public profiles. Their real status lives in private networks.

3. Anti-Signaling

The pattern: In many domains, excessive status signaling indicates low status.

The high-status move:

  • Understated credentials
  • Casual mentions of serious accomplishments
  • Not having a bio that lists everything
  • Not needing to prove anything

The low-status move:

  • Exhaustive CV on website
  • Every credential in bio
  • Constant humble-bragging
  • Obvious status seeking

Why this works: Truly high-status people don't need to convince you. Their status is legible to insiders without explanation. Over-signaling reveals you're playing to outsiders.

The trap: This means legible status markers can actually signal low illegible status. The "thought leader" with 100K followers might have less real status than the person with 200 followers who are all top practitioners.

Why People Optimize Wrong

Given that illegible status is more valuable, why do people chase legible status?

1. Measurement

Legible status:

  • Countable
  • Comparable
  • Clear targets
  • Visible progress

Illegible status:

  • Fuzzy
  • Context-dependent
  • No clear metrics
  • Progress uncertain

Result: People naturally gravitate toward measurable goals. "Get 10K followers" is actionable. "Become respected by top researchers" is vague.

2. Access

Legible status is available to anyone:

  • Anyone can build a following
  • Anyone can get credentials
  • Anyone can create content
  • Anyone can apply to programs

Illegible status requires access:

  • Need to know insiders
  • Need to be invited
  • Need to be introduced
  • Need to already be somewhat inside

Result: Legible status is the accessible path. Illegible status has gatekeepers.

3. Validation

Legible status provides constant validation:

  • Follower count goes up → dopamine hit
  • Job title changes → clear milestone
  • Publication appears → concrete proof

Illegible status is uncertain:

  • Did that conversation matter?
  • Was that email response meaningful?
  • Are they actually impressed?
  • Hard to know

Result: Legible status feels better. Clear feedback loops beat ambiguous signals.

The Weird Equilibrium

This creates strange dynamics:

The Public-Private Split

High illegible status, low legible status:

  • The researcher everyone important cites but who has no Twitter
  • The engineer every top company recruits but who has no public profile
  • The writer whose essays circulate among practitioners but who has 200 followers

High legible status, low illegible status:

  • The thought leader with 100K followers who top people never read
  • The person with impressive credentials who doesn't get invited to key meetings
  • The author of a bestselling book that practitioners dismiss

The invisible elite: In every field, there's a group of people with enormous illegible status and minimal public presence. They're invisible to outsiders but instantly recognized by insiders.

Status Arbitrage

Smart players exploit the split:

Strategy: Build illegible status (the real game), but maintain just enough legible status to access opportunities.

Why this works:

  • Illegible status compounds (high-status people introduce you to other high-status people)
  • Legible status opens doors (you need some credentials to get initial access)
  • The combination is powerful

The balance: Too much legible status pursuit indicates you're optimizing wrong. Too little means you never get access to begin with.

What This Means

Some implications:

1. The Follower Trap

Having many followers is not high status. Having the right followers is.

  • 100K randos < 100 domain experts
  • Viral posts < posts shared in private by practitioners
  • Engagement rate < who specifically engages

The test: Would you rather have 10K followers or have the top 10 people in your field read everything you write?

If you pick 10K followers, you're optimizing for legible status. If you pick the top 10, you understand the game.

2. Credential Confusion

Credentials provide access, not status.

What credentials do:

  • Get you in the door
  • Provide baseline credibility
  • Signal you can meet thresholds

What credentials don't do:

  • Guarantee respect from top practitioners
  • Make insiders take you seriously
  • Substitute for actual capability

The move: Get enough credentials to access opportunities. Then forget about credentials and build real capability.

3. The Inside Track

Most valuable opportunities never appear publicly:

  • Best jobs aren't posted
  • Best collaborations come from relationships
  • Best projects come from being asked
  • Best insights come from private conversations

How to access: Build illegible status. Get known by people who matter. Do work they respect. Earn invitations.

Not: Optimize your LinkedIn profile and spam applications.

Takeaways

The core insight: Status divides into legible (visible to everyone) and illegible (visible to insiders). Illegible status is more valuable but harder to pursue.

What to do:

Stop:

  • Optimizing primarily for legible metrics (followers, titles, credentials)
  • Confusing public visibility with actual status
  • Playing status games for outsiders when insiders are the real audience
  • Using legible markers as end goals rather than access tools

Start:

  • Building relationships with the best people in your field
  • Doing work that practitioners respect (even if it's invisible to outsiders)
  • Pursuing opportunities through insider networks
  • Recognizing that the highest-status people often have modest public profiles

Ask yourself:

  • Who are the insiders in my domain?
  • Do they know my work?
  • Would they recommend me to others?
  • Am I optimizing for people who matter or people who don't?

The controversial takeaway:

If the metric is public and countable, it's probably not real status. Real status is illegible—it lives in who takes your calls, who invites you to participate, who recommends you to others, who reads your work carefully.

The person with 100K followers might have less actual status than the person with 200 followers who are all top practitioners.

Stop optimizing for the legible game. Start playing the illegible one.

The highest-status people in your field are probably invisible to you. The most visible people are probably mid-level players optimizing for the wrong audience.

Choose your game carefully.

Today's Sketch

December 14, 2025