On Prestige

Recently, I asked ChatGPT for reasons why a Chinese company would choose to go public in China, Hong Kong, or the US. It promptly put out a neat list of pros and cons for each option considering financial, legal, and even geopolitical factors. Out of all these, the one that caught my attention was its first reason for listing in China: “national prestige”.

Prestige is a funny thing. I remember how odd it felt to me during high school history exams when I would mechanically write about “prestige” as a factor causing all sorts of events. From the Space Race to the Arms Race to so and so misguided foreign invasion, I knew the mark scheme wanted me to mention prestige so I did, but I remained unconvinced. The notion that great powers’ actions were at all influenced by what others thought seemed ridiculous. Surely it must rely on a sober accounting of concrete national interests, and not some silly popularity game. Similarly at a personal level, I believed that caring too much what others thought was a dangerous game. One should forge one’s own path based on their own goals. Chasing status and prestige was a game for losers.

I was wrong. Or at least, not entirely correct.

Prestige doesn’t just have to be an accessory of vanity. Used correctly, it is a powerful tool. How you are perceived matters just as much if not more than what you really are. Power only matters if others can also see that you are powerful. Speak softly and carry a big stick but make sure that stick is visible so that people think twice before crossing you.

I used to be very reluctant to display my skills/talents because I didn’t want to make some “morally impure” hubristic display of myself. I soon saw that this was a fool’s errand, and my performative morality would never let me realise my true potential. For people to give me the opportunities I know I’m worth, it isn’t enough to just be talented. I have to demonstrate my abilities clearly. The best way to do this is to do great things and solve tough problems, but that requires capital and resources. The easiest way to acquire capital and resources when you don’t have them is through status and credentials.

For example, it’s idiotic to work hard to get into Stanford just so that I can say I went to Stanford. The value of doing a PhD here is that it gives me the opportunity to do groundbreaking research on the things that matter to me, like building quantum technology to try to understand the true nature of the universe. In the future, this status trinket will hopefully give me enough credibility to make people give me capital to solve other interesting problems like building a quantum computer. By choosing Stanford, I was maximising for prestige but with a broader purpose in mind.

The danger arises when somebody starts chasing prestige for its own sake. Young me understood that tying my self-worth to how many status trinkets I have is a path to disaster. He was rightly afraid that chasing status could consume him like drugs consume an addict. But he was too cautious in his approach. He was playing to not lose. I’m playing to win. I now see that if pursued with sobriety and a sense of greater purpose, prestige is a fantastic catalyst to the real meaningful goals in my life. Chasing status for status’ sake is indeed a loser’s game, but chasing status in service of a greater goal is a winning strategy.

Prestige is a means to an end, not the end itself. If you don’t let it control you, it is a useful tool to advance your interests. All those historical leaders I scoffed at in history class understood this well. Fortunately, I think now I have also.