Will Storr Part 1 | The Status Game

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Welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. Today I am joined by Will Storr, the bestselling author and the writer of one of my all-time favorite books, The Status Game. Will talks about how we are involved with status in almost every aspect of our life, and I think it's something that we don't talk anywhere near enough when it comes to the world of work, whether it's people's job or their job title, the company they work for. It's all wrapped up in status games. And within those companies themselves, there will be further status games. And also, we talk quite a bit in this episode about the various different status games that were in Downing Street, which is always interesting when your salary is published. So it was a fascinating conversation with one of my favorite thinkers. There's barely a big podcast out there that Will has not been invited on to speak. So we've actually cut this episode up. on audio into 2 halves because it was the longest ever recording that we've done. So I really hope you enjoy this. The second part of it will be out later this week. Thanks very much for listening. On to the first part of the episode with Will Storr. Make sure you subscribe so we can continue to get bigger and bigger guests. Well, welcome to Jimmy's Jobs. I loved your book about status, and it's one of the few book covers that's ever made me laugh out loud when I ordered it, because I listened to it, and then when I saw it on Amazon, I was like, by bestselling author Will Storr.

Yeah, I think the designer did that as a joke, and we were really struggling with the COVID and I, I asked him to send me in— can you just send me in everything, even the rejects? And I saw that, and I was like, that's obviously the COVID it's got to be the COVID And the publishers were like, it's a bit of a risk, it's a bit of a risk, and I was like, no, that has to be the COVID I think it's brilliant.

What were the other covers? How else can you kind of convey status?

Honestly, Jimmy, I'm quite— I'm a real pest with my covers. Like, I'm a bit annoying. Like, so one thing I don't like is the covers where they're very literal, you know, they describe the title in the graphic. So I said to them, I don't want ladders and snakes, I don't want gold, and, you know, of course that was the first one. Yeah, we've got ladders and snakes and gold. So, um, but, but that— I, I, yeah, I think it's great, you know, and all credit to the designer. I think he thought he was taking the piss out of me, but I was like, no, we've got to do it, we've got to do it.

When do you think you sort of became consciously aware of, of status games? Because I think it's one of the things that is so important in life and work, and it's just never talked about. Yeah. And not in any culture as well, because there's an element of Britishness to this stuff, I think, in terms of like, yeah, we definitely do self-deprecate more than other nations, etc., and so on. But I also think like it's true in America as well. The whole state of play is just not discussed at work, really.

No, it's really interesting, isn't it, how it's, um, invisible and yet it's so unbelievably important to basically everything we do. I first came aware of it when I was researching a previous book which was called Selfie, which is about, um, Western individualism and how it manifests in our kind of very me-focused culture. And I interviewed a very well-known psychologist at the University of Bristol called Bruce Hood. And as part of our conversation, he said to me— he didn't use the word status, he used the word validation— he said, why do we do anything that we do? You know, once we've got enough money to survive, it's just all validation. And my immediate response was like, oh God, that's so cynical. Like, Like, that can't be true. But then I, you know, thought about it for like 30 seconds and I was like, you know, he's right. Like, that's so— and that kind of stayed with me because I just felt it was extraordinary. And then once— because it's one of those things, once you see it, once you have had the idea introduced to you, you start seeing it everywhere.

Sure.

And then there was a big paper that came out asking the question, is status a fundamental human need? And I read the paper and it was, you know, incredibly persuasive, you know, going through all the evidence from economics, philosophy, psychology, and it concluded that yes, it was absolutely a fundamental human need. So those, those two things, I was like, well, I— this has got to be a book. Yeah, like, this is, this is so important.

Um, and it's obviously become kind of a bestseller, and like one of the bits you talk about in the book is like the importance of it becoming a kind of bestseller, or to authors, but it's essentially that like in every different game that you go into in life, there's just a whole new set of rules and a whole new set of status signals that don't get talked about. And I actually think it's like one of the things that's really difficult around social mobility as well is like, it's actually like a lot more casual dress coming in. And it means that actually, if you're a working-class person, you go into a company, then you don't necessarily know the new rules around sort of smart casual being the worst thing for social mobility ever. So like, what has been your kind of reflections on being a— being an author in the kind of status game that that brings?

Well, yeah, so I think that's right. So one of the misnomers about status is that all of human life is one big status game and that we're all competing with like Michelle Obama and the King of Thailand. And we're not, you know, and if we were, it would be incredibly stressful and depressing. We'd have a nervous breakdown. So, you know, human society is made up of infinite almost effectively sort of status games.

Yeah.

You know, we're a tribal animal, so wherever we go, we make groups and those groups are have status hierarchies and are bound together by rules. And if you— and the better you play by the rules, the higher your status goes up. So that describes everything from a football team to a political party to an economy, you know, that's just how it works. And so, and so each of those status games, as you say, has these different rules, and we absorb them almost subconsciously. Like, we don't quite know, like—

Yeah.

You know, I remember when I, like, I joined CrossFit a few years ago, and, and I was like, I must get those— they've got these special socks, haven't they, where they They don't have the tops, they just cut them off.

Oh yeah, yeah.

So I got my special socks and I turned up and everybody had long socks on and I was like, oh, why have they got long socks? And I spent my first hour being self-conscious about my socks. Like, it's so ridiculous. Like, but there were these rules. And as an author, you know, I'm always, you know, I started as a journalist. I worked in newspapers and magazines. So, you know, I'm comprehensive school. I didn't go to university. And so in a work context, I was always aware of that. there was that— not a division, but there were the private school university people and there was— there were much fewer people like me who was obviously comprehensive school. And, you know, we've got different ways of being. Like, I can always tell a comprehensive school person because we swear a lot, you know, like we dress slightly differently. We're— we can't— we're not very good at— we, you know, we kind of take the piss a lot.

Yes.

Much more. So, so, so, so, so, yeah, I was aware of it going into the media. And, you know, it's not like people like to think of it as divisions. It's not really a division. You know, it's not as though I didn't get on with people who went to private school at all. But you're aware of it. And, and yeah, and there is a— you do get a bit of a chip in the sense of you feel like there's something— you're not quite as impressive as somebody who has these ways of being which you can't quite understand.

A bit as well that really struck home with me because I thought I saw so much of myself in the book and whatever, because I've always had this thought on kind of like friendships, and particularly male friendships I think are like this, in terms of like they are quite sort of like piss-taking in their inherent thing. But I've always thought that your mate should support you on like the big stuff, and so like the promotions and whatever, like that's great. And like, but actually they should take the piss out of your shoes or whatever, like when you see them, like that's, that's like what a good friendship is.

Yeah.

And then I was reading the book and you were like, One of the things that status people do is that— well, not status people, but one of the things they do is they try and build their tribe up. So whilst it's important that you've got your status kind of within the tribe, there is also you want to talk up the tribe as well, which I just thought was—

Yeah. So this is one of the really interesting nuances about how status works for humans, because obviously lots of animals play status games. We play incredibly complex ones. And so humans have this thing where we earn status on 2 different levels. So there's individual status, so the status within the group, so who's got man of the match, who's the best person in the meeting, who's had the best idea. But then— and so we can feel good or bad depending on how we're doing within the game. But also the game itself is playing a status game versus its rivals. And we can feel great when our team wins versus rivals. And one of the nuances is that it's kind of bad, and this is universal. I mean, there are cultural differences obviously, but it's universal across human groups that— bigging yourself up individually is bad. So even in hunter-gatherer groups that are studied, it's very, you know, all over the world, from the Inuits to the, you know, people, to tribes in the Amazon, there are harsh social punishments for being that big man, being cocky, you know, putting yourself above other people. But that doesn't apply to group self-esteem, or sometimes you call it group narcissism.

Mm-hmm.

People are kind of expected and actually encouraged and applauded for like saying, we are a amazing, we are fantastic. I mean, it was, you know, it's a kind of a norm about hunter-gatherer groups. They, they believe that they are the best tribe in the world. We're the only tribe. We're the human beings. The other tribes aren't quite human, you know. Um, so, so, so that's, that's one of these really interesting nuances of, of, of human society that, that, yeah, me, I'm amazing is not seen— it is seen as, um, not good. Um, but, but the group, group narcissism, as I say, tends to be applauded and awarded and encouraged.

Yeah. And how do you describe your job to people?

I just say I'm a writer.

A writer?

Yeah.

Okay, that's— but you're also kind of like a part broadcaster as well, like, because you were a journalist to start out with, right? And journalist and writer, you're obviously different.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I always feel a bit self-conscious because I don't know, it is— that is interesting that you've asked me that because people often ask, you know, how do we introduce you? And I say, just call me a writer. And there's always a bit of silence, like, well, don't you want to be called something else? And it's— but it does come from a place of self-consciousness and embarrassment about who do you think you are? And I think that's— I don't know if it's a compre— like just a comprehensive school thing. I'm sure it isn't. Well, it isn't, but I think it's emphasized by that background of anybody that, you know, I think we're really shaped by our— by those adolescent years.

Yes.

In ways that we can't— it's almost impossible to shrug off no matter how old you get.

you're going to push back at this. Do you consider yourself like an intellectual kind of writer? Because the stuff that you do is really interesting and you get invited to some fascinating places to talk about this stuff.

Well, I, I, I write about ideas. Yeah, so that's true. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's what I'm interested in. I'm interested in ideas, especially ideas around human nature and why, who, you know, what we are as animals and why we behave in the ways that we behave. It is a kind of search for understanding what the hell is going on.

Did you ever think of being a psychologist?

Yes, I did. I did want to be a psychologist, but we didn't— my school didn't do— my crap school didn't do a psychology A-level, and it was a Catholic school. My parents are very Catholic. And so there was an option to go to the grammar school and do psychology at A-level. My mum said, oh, you don't want to do that, it's all maths, it's all maths. So she put me off. But I think it's because she didn't want— she wanted me to be at the Catholic school. It was a tribal thing.

Yeah, yeah.

God forbid I would not be at the Catholic school. So, yeah, yeah. So I would have done— I probably would have ended up being a psychologist if my mum hadn't given me that bit of propaganda to stop me going to the grammar school.

But you didn't go to university as well.

No.

Which is also quite interesting. I imagine most writers would have been to university.

Yeah, I didn't go to university. Yeah, because I was chaotic as a, as a, as a child. I was, um, you know, probably these days they would have diagnosed me with some ADHD. I'm not saying I've got that. I reject it as a label, uh, for myself. But like, yeah, but, but I was— they called it hyperactive at the time. I was very badly behaved. I was, I was drinking quite a bit. I was much more interested in my girlfriend than I was in my A-levels, which I found incredibly boring, you know. I remember when the day we started, um, our A-levels, our head of sixth form said, right, GCSEs were easy, guys. From now on, you're gonna have to do 1 hour per A-level homework per night. And I just thought, I'm not gonna do that. And I literally gave up on the first day. I was like, I'm never gonna do that. So, so yeah, that, that, that's the— that, that— so I, I, I kind of failed. I mean, it was, it was actually the experience for me of um, in that kind of status kind of realm because I, because I really felt like I— well, I had, I had failed. Yeah, you know, I got one— I, I always say I failed my A-levels. I got one E to give myself credit. I got one E in geography, I failed English, and, um, and failed RE. And so yeah, I ended up working in a record shop.

Failed English and RE and now you're a teacher. I think it's important with this stuff as well because I think One of the challenges that the generation have that are coming through at the moment is they see a lot of success through social media, which obviously you've written loads about as well. But sometimes it's like, yeah, like we massively over-index like academic performance in those first 18 years of life. And actually it can, you know, it does not necessarily— for very few jobs you need real kind of like academic brilliance.

Yeah. And also I do think there's a personality type which is which is a bit— which just doesn't fit in with school and education. Like, I remember doing— when I was a journalist, I did a big profile in The Observer about a guy called Josh Brandon. And Josh Brandon, he was at the time Britain's most successful male escort. So I thought, that's very interesting, I wonder what his story is. So he's a Welsh guy, and he— and I went back to his hometown to see what— because he'd left hometown to come to come to London and ended up becoming this very successful escort. And, and I remember we went to his school and he was telling me, and the things that he was telling me about his, his behavior at school was similar to me. Like, he couldn't behave. He was always in trouble, failed his exams, all that stuff. But he had this kind of energy about him. He had this kind of like, this kind of almost like angry energy about him that he was going to succeed no matter what.

Yeah.

You know, and that was what I was like too, you know, like I was failing my exams, but I also set up my own— like, I hated the school magazine. I thought it was awful and it was full of prayers. It literally had prayers and poems in it. So I set up my own one, which was full of gossip and, you know, and it was really successful. And then I started writing for my— there was a local, like, they called it a fanzine at the time, which is—

Yeah, yeah.

You remember, that's a blog on photocopied paper, essentially. So I started writing a music column when I was like 14 for that. So, so that was— looking back, it was like my parents and my teachers couldn't understand that these were signals of success.

Yes.

I was working really hard. And then I set up my own magazine and I got, you know, this is when I was with a local magazine and I got advertisers and I got it distributed. I was making a profit on it. So when I look back, I felt like a failure, but I wasn't failing at all. I was just like, there were these systems in place to help young people get into that work world.

Yeah.

They didn't work for me, but I was doing my own thing and it worked. You know, like I was interviewing bands when I was sort of 18, 19, and then I became a journalist.

So yeah.

And it always amazed me when I started writing for The Guardian because you have it drilled into you so much. But especially my parents, who were both in education, you know, it's exams, exams, exams. Who you are is how you grade. And, you know, you're writing for The Guardian and The Observer and The Sunday Times, and no one, no one asks you what your exam results are. They don't care, you know. They don't care that you failed your A-levels and all this stuff. It's just not important. What's important is, are you good? Are you doing a good job? Okay, you're in.

Yeah.

And so it had a great feeling of meritocracy about it, all that stuff. It really was Nobody was looking at your exam results. It was like, can, you know, can you cut it? Yeah.

And I think that's so interesting for university as well, because it's all a lot of these academic qualifications are is like a shortcut to be able to sort of demonstrate that to somebody in a new company or whatever. It's like, you know, I went to Russell Group university and did a relatively hard degree, therefore I've got 30% chance of being better at this than somebody who hasn't. Even though that might not be true, right? That's just the established sort of—

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't my experience when I worked with people who had journalism degrees and it always used to sort of make me scratch my head cuz I'd think, what, what do you know that I don't?

Yeah.

And the answer was shorthand. You know, that was the answer that I was kind of jealous that they knew shorthand. They could make these quick, quick notes. I was like, oh, I wish I could do shorthand. Uh, but, but that was it, you know? And, and I can actually, you know, so they'd had this expensive education at university, 3 or 4 years, but I'd been You know, I've been doing distribution, advertising, interviewing bands, setting up stuff. I was blagging my way into backstage at concerts pretending I had organized to interview with these sort of famous bands that I hadn't really, you know. I was doing all that stuff. And for me, that's, you know, it's— I mean, it's not either/or, is it? But I would prefer to have that education than the one that they had at the university, you know, really. Yeah.

I just thought, I just thought that's probably a skill that's now sort of been made irrelevant over the last few years, is shorthand, actually. Yeah, like, yeah, now you can just record everything on him.

Yeah.

So one of my theories about status workplace that I'd be interested in your kind of take on is that every generation comes into the workplace and slightly redefines what they think is important.

Yeah.

Um, and I just think that's quite a interesting dynamic in terms of status is always like constantly evolving in that sense. Like the examples I give are like the corner office used to be really important in the '80s and '90s, and then it all became open plan, etc. And that corner office now has kind of slightly been, you know, is not as important as it was. There's this great story about in Canada about how they made this special kind of office block that had like 18 corners on it essentially. Yeah, that's amazing. Right, but that's like so everyone could Oh. And I just think that it's, um, yeah, I just think like, and technology is a, is a big one. Like, I remember the, when I first entered the workforce in the late noughties, that you could only have a BlackBerry if you were at a certain level. And, uh, that was like account manager. And I got one as a senior account exec. And this was like a double status flex because like, you know, all of a sudden, like, I was important enough to have a BlackBerry. And also I'd been given one early. And in a way it's absolutely mad because it meant I was going to have to work more and be on call more, but that— it was just so important for me. And now I think you've got like people being much more kind of like, you know, putting, you know, boundaries in around what work they do and so on. So it's just interesting how every generation comes through and slightly redefines it in the workplace.

Yeah, they redefine it, but it's always there, that those markers. status, those symbols of status. And I think, you know, partly why that, you know, I don't know if it's why, but the redefinition then does have that kind of unfortunate effect of slightly pushing out the older generations. And perhaps that's, as I say, partly why it is there, that it is to kind of mark out the new generation. And, you know, we have different values and different things that signify status. And that includes beliefs. You know, obviously one of the big changes that's happened in the workforce since Gen Z and Gen Zed and the millennials came up with, this is much more focused on social justice and all this other stuff that which—

Purpose. Yeah, and purpose and meaning and all that being a much bigger thing rather than it just being the work to get the cash to—

yeah, yeah.

Um, what else do you observe from— because you're like probably work alone a lot as a writer— what do you observe about how kind of like, you know, I was going to say corporate Britain, but just generally how corporate life is changing?

Well, obviously the, you know, the working from home thing is a, is a, is a, is, is a big, you know, new thing. I mean, and I, and I, I do think it's a— I do think it's problematic, to use a millennial phrase. I, I, I, I think it's a mistake, but, you know, when you know, you know, quite how important it is for humans to work together.

Yeah.

You know, there was one really interesting study that I wrote about in my last book, which looked at pitching, pitching for investment. And so they had this series of business people doing— presenting their business plans on stage to an audience of potential investors. And they were wearing this thing called a sociometric badge. And what a sociometric badge does is it kind of mimics what the what the brain's doing in terms of picking up the social signals from the audience, how much eye contact is going on, you know, your pulse, time between question and answer, that kind of thing. So it's picking up all this kind of subtle stuff that happens between humans when they're in the presence of each other. And the data from the sociometric badge predicted who would get investment and who didn't. So the people offering the investment were thinking, oh, it's because of the business plan, it's because of my smart strategic thinking. But it was all about how they were coming across and what that— and this incredibly sort of dense fields of nonverbal communication that's happening, you know. So, you know, we're a tribal animal. We are communal. We're kind of part ant, part ape, really, you know, where we are, you know, we do everything in these highly cooperative groups. And so we are exquisitely tuned to work together, but in the presence of each other.

Yes.

You know, so, and, and if I was running a business, I would want my team together, you know, like, like working together, building relationships. Um, I, I like to, to, to, to have them all working from various bedrooms around the country. You're losing something really fundamental. So I can see why people— because I work at home, I can see why people want to do it. It's great, not commuting. I used to commute. Um, but, but, but, but it— I, yeah, I, I, I personally think it's a mistake.

I agree. Like, I think it's, it's building that social capital is like, you can kind of give it one term as well. Like, one of the things I think about is at schools and so on, one of the reasons why often popular kids are sporty is because the sports teams learn to rely on each other more and they just spend more time together, right? And so That is my kind of logic for like why that is. It's not necessarily because it's cool to be good at sport, but it's more that side of it. But obviously it is, because actually where a lot of status comes from is, is just being competent.

Yeah, right.

Like it's being, being useful to other people.

Well, that's right. So competence is such a huge, um, uh, driver of status in amongst humans. You know, we, we look for people who are good at what they do and And who display signals of their success, which is why we like a Rolex watch sometimes and that kind of thing, or an expensive car. So I think that being at school and being great at sports, you're already demonstrating competence, which especially for men is a really important thing. It's a core part of someone's identity. But I think that's a really interesting idea that actually working in teams makes you somebody better at kind of playing those social status games, you know? Yeah, you know, I, I've never thought of that, but I think that's really interesting. I'm sure there's something to that because especially at that age, to be, to be, you know, the loner in the, in, in the class and to be the person who's a bit introverted is hard. Yeah, you know, it's hard.

But I think we are getting better at understanding that, right? Like, I do think there's— I think there is, like, there is obviously greater understanding of neurodivergence in schools, but also just in sort of adult life as well, of organizing things with people and realizing that they are just— they're just wired a bit differently. Um, yeah, I think it's— yeah, I think it's like— I think that is one of the good things that's kind of happening in the sort of workspace actually, is that people are being a bit more kind of like aware of neurodivergence and sort of like— and how you kind of like utilize that as well, right, in terms of the organization as well is quite, um, is quite interesting. Um, have you ever thought about going back to university to do it, like do any kind of master's or anything?

No.

Well, I haven't— to do a master's, I'd need a degree, wouldn't I? I'd have to start from the very beginning.

I can't imagine you'd struggle with— they're not going to be asking for your A-levels.

Well, honestly, I don't— I just have no interest. Like, like, I just don't. I'm just— I, I don't— I, I'm just not that interested. interested in going to university. Like, like, you know, I mean, I mean, I'm in a, in a kind of lucky position in the sense that I, I get to spend a lot of my time doing my own research. And, um, you know, when I was a journalist— I don't get this privilege anymore— when I was a journalist, I used to, I could phone up, you know, I could get a story commissioned on certain subjects, which you didn't. And then that would enable me to speak to some of the world's best psychologists, you know, David Eagleman, Jonathan Haidt, Sophie Scott, and neuroscientists. And I'd get to get them on the phone, you know. So that, that's like, that was a great education in working in learning about psychology and neuroscience. science, being just writing about the stuff for newspapers, because I got to, you know, curious minds, you know, I got access to all these amazing people. Now I have to do it through my own kind of reading and research because I'm not a journalist anymore. But still, it's—

yeah, it's— And how do you start? How do you get the idea for like— what ideas have you got in your head for like future books and so on, without giving anything about any kind of exclusives? Like, what sort of piques your— like, how does the sort of the day of Will Storr look when you sort of sit down?

Well, I think the things that pique my interest are the kind of trying to uncover the kind of secret forces that kind of control human life and the things that are actually going on kind of underneath the surface of consciousness. So, you know, my— you know, one of my early books, The Heretics, was looking at why otherwise intelligent people believe crazy things.

Yes.

So, you know, David Irving, who I spent some time with, the historian, Who's the historian who used to be very highly regarded and now, and then since decided that Hitler was a friend of the Jews. Controversial. And so yeah, he's been obviously excommunicated, spent time in prison for his views. But not a stupid man by any stretch, a very smart man. So that was a really interesting mystery for me. Like, how is it that somebody as smart as that can end up believing that Hitler was a friend of the Jews? And the answer was because the human brain is a storyteller and it's not really interested in the truth. It's interested in the story and it's interested in the story that makes me feel good about myself. So that was the beginning of this. And every book really has been another step on the journey of kind of understanding that basic idea of the brain as a storyteller. And really The Status Game is a kind of updated thesis from The Heretics. The Heretics is talking about we want to be heroes. The Status Game is really about, yeah, you know, it's, it's kind of saying a similar thing, that we, we all want to feel heroic in our lives, and one of the ways that we do that is by earning status.

And telling stories about ourselves as well along, along the way. Um, and yeah, I think it's just how it's changed in terms of, you know, and I think about this like my kids and so on. It's like, I grew up at— in school, those formative years, kind of in the noughties, and it was quite like— it was just before that kind of like social media explosion, although we were using the internet. But we were— you were basically in competition with people in your school and kind of the county, maybe.

Yeah.

Like, it never really kind of like got sort of beyond that. And then all of a sudden, like, yeah, if you were growing up just 10 years later, you were all of a sudden in competition with people from like all across the globe.

Yeah, that's, that, that's one of the— that's one of the major changes that's happened to our species. Um, and it's something that I'm writing about in my— the book that I'm writing at the moment. Um, really, and it's, and it's so, so, you know, in the long period in which our brains evolved, we were playing status games with essentially a dozen people.

Yeah.

Like, you know, people often talk about the size of the human tribe as being about 150, but that would include, you know, we had this fission-fusion arrangement where we'd have these sort of smaller units that would occasionally hook up with bigger units. But day to day, it was between 30 and 50 people. And now you split that in terms of gender, because back in the day, men would compete with men, women compete with women. Um, and there wouldn't be much crossover. And, you know, people have, you know, different age groups, we compete with different age groups. So, so when we evolved, status was relatively easy to come by. So, you know, you just got to be a pretty good hunter, pretty good finder of sweet potatoes or honey or—

Yeah.

Builder of camps, or he's really good at lighting the fire, she's really good at, um, you know, finding the— where the bees are, or whatever it would be. And, and so coupled with that, that we have this you know, this, this, this very— this habit of group narcissism in our— in humanity. So we would be— so we would believe our tribes were amazing, the best tribe in the world, and we were a crucial part of it. So everybody mattered. Everybody felt essential. Everybody felt— everybody felt important, um, for the vast majority of evolution. And then 11,000 years ago, we settled down. We stopped being hunter-gatherers, you know, and, and, you know, towns and villages sprung up. And, you know, the first megacities appeared around 3,000 years ago, you know, huge communities with different cultures and people from different backgrounds. So suddenly, you know, we were meeting strangers for the first time. And then that was the era of big gods, and suddenly status games became about religion, about Christianity and Islam. Yes. And that's— these are all status games. Even Buddhism is a status game. They have hierarchy. You win or you lose, heaven or hell. karma, you know, all of that stuff. And then, you know, in England the job was invented and suddenly we're working for these big companies. And, and today the status games are, you know, we, we play just vast, you know, we, we're on social media with billions of other active users that some of the biggest economies of the world are not nations, they're companies like Accenture, the, um, accountancy firm.

Yeah.

Have more employees than the population of Iceland, I found out yesterday. You know, like, it's amazing. Um, Nvidia the chip company, you know, the most valuable company in the world, their market valuation is bigger than the GDP of every country in the world except Britain. Not Britain, sorry, I wish. America, China, and Germany, you know.

Yeah.

So these are just huge status games that we're playing these days. And I think that's why there is this, you know, despite the fact that we've kind of solved the major problems of survival, we have food and security and shelter, We still feel anxious and we still feel worried and we still feel insecure. There's still a hole in there because I, I think there's a sense that we, that we struggle to feel that we really matter, you know. Yeah, in the way that we did back in the days of the hunter-gatherer tribe.

I also think that's quite a class thing as well, right? So like, one of the reasons I started this podcast was because I could feel my relevancy slipping after Downing Street, right? And like, we'd had a kid and there'd been a pandemic and whatever, but I could still feel it going. And I've been around all my network asking what I should do with my life next, and weirdly no one sort of is going to write it out for you. That's one of the lessons I've learned. Um, but I was like, well, I can't just go around again and be like a year later, like, so I've got it. So I was like, oh well, I've got to have this thing. And that's where like the, the podcast started from and so on. And like a bigger part of it than I'd like to admit, than is part of the story, is like, yeah, it was definitely about kind of staying socially relevant. Do you know also that the, the word job, right, comes from like jobby and basically kind of got codified in about 1858? I was reading this yesterday as well, like, and because I think it's interesting that actually it's only existed for around 170 years.

Wow.

And it was basically moving an amount. So that's where sort of jobby comes from. It was like a job lot, I think, is also where it sort of comes from. And that was probably the first kind of like physical jobs were about, like moving stuff was like a big part of it to then go and build stuff. Because I've, I've been trying to think about like, what if all the kind of tech bros are right about if we're not going to have any jobs in 3 years or whatever the latest kind of predictions are, what it's, what it's actually going to mean. And I think it's, it's a, it's a big deal because it's, it's people's usefulness.

Yeah.

Right.

It's huge. It's people's mattering, and people's mattering matters more than their actual lives. You know, people choose mattering over, you know, as the most important thing all the time. Whenever we go to war, whenever there's a jihadist blows himself up, you know, or even something as benign as starting to smoke, you know, like my generation, we all smoked even though we knew we were going to get addicted and it might kill us, just that we might look 6% cooler at the bar. So, you know, like, that's how much status means to us, you know, it's, it's hugely important. Uh, and I, and I think that, that there's always that with— you're seeing it now with the AI people, but it's, but it's been there for a while, this idea that once we figure out how to get this— the machines to do our jobs for us, we're gonna have this life of leisure. And I think it completely misunderstands what a human being is, because human beings don't actually want a life of leisure. I mean, some of us do, but most of us don't. But we want to be useful.

Yes.

We want to do something. And if we don't feel useful, and we don't feel like we're doing something, if we don't feel that we're offering value, value to the human family in some way, we get depressed. We, you know, we don't like it. So, so it's, it's, so it's a complete— it's quite cynical misunderstanding of, of the, the amazingness of our species to think that, oh yeah, that's actually what we're going to want. We're going to want AI to do our work for us, and we're going to want to sort of sit back and drink piña coladas. Because it's not true. And it's actually, you know, a good thing because, because people are going to carry on figuring out ways of being useful somehow.

Yeah, and the human need to kind of create as well, I think, is— yeah, sort of important on that. Like, there's an amazing book— I talk about this quite a lot— but it's Charlie Colnutt wrote a book called Is This Working? And he went and spoke to 80 people about their jobs today, and it's almost like the opposite of Jimmy's Jobs of the Future in some ways, in terms of speaking to people here and now, and it's like lots of kind of like everyday jobs like nurses, etc. And it was— what, what was interesting in it was the amount of like shadow work and kind of like bureaucracy that a lot of these jobs have. And it's one of the things I say to people at the moment about AI is do not underestimate humans' capacity to make work for one another, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like, it will— it's got this great line in it about a kind of a construction site worker or sort director on a construction site being like, I can't have a conversation with anyone on site without then having to go and put it in email afterwards, right? Like, it's kind of like real health and safety. Understandably, perhaps. But I think we shouldn't underestimate that humans will be very good at finding work for other humans, whether it's useful or not. Like, yeah, different question.

Yeah, well, I think that's right. I, I think that the future with AI in it is is a mystery, but, but, but I am optimistic that we'll, you know, we'll figure it out because I just, I think that most people, um, we're not just going to give up as a species and go, oh, I'm useless now. Um, there'll be a transition and it'll be hard, but, and, and certain elements of it might not be better, just like the music industry has been completely— suffered hugely since the beginning of the internet. Yeah. I mean, you know, after I worked at the record shop, I worked at a record company for a while and I saw the beginnings of the internet and, and, and, um, the, the, you know, the Napster era. And it was already just terrible what it's done to the music industry. And the music industry today is a, is, um, you know, it's a, it's a sorry state compared to, to what it was. Um, and that's because of the internet. So it's not as though you can't be naive and think that every, every act of progress is, is necessarily positive.

Yeah.

Um, musicians struggle, especially that middle band of musicians really struggle to make a living anymore.

Yeah.

You know, one of my favorite singers, she, she's always on, um, Instagram selling songwriting lessons for like £60 an hour or something. It's like, it's, it's, it's just, she said, you know, your heart breaks a little bit because it's like, yeah, you know, 20 years ago you'd have been, you'd have had a massive record deal and have lots of money spent on you, but that just doesn't— there isn't that money anymore in recorded music.

I find it so sad. I also find it interesting to kind of like come back to it on a kind of like status level, because it strikes me that entertainer is still quite a high status job and people still want to do that. And arguably it's one of our oldest jobs if you think about jesters of the court and so on. But, and it's become much more accessible for people to become entertainers because of the internet. But like you say, it's kind of like the economic side of it has been Completely ripped out.

Well, that was it. Like, I mean, when, you know, back in the '90s in the grunge era and before that, the, the whole story about the music industry was like, oh, they're a bunch of crooks, they're the man, and, you know, they're gonna— and all this stuff. And it was, it was kind of— that was probably true in the, in the Elvis era, but it was much less true in the '90s and early noughties. You know what would happen? I had some friends, this happened too. They got signed by MCA, they got given a quarter of a million quid, you know, and then they had tons of money spent on them as in terms of studio time, producers, stylists, photographers to make the album cover. It's amazing if you're a band. That's amazing. This company is spending a fortune gambling to see whether they can make you a star or not. It's a great collaborative thing. And if you are a star, we're going to make money, you're going to make money, everyone's happy. Um, and then, um, perhaps 10 years ago, I went and did a story at YouTube about young YouTube entertainers and YouTube millennials. Remember this, this, um— This, this young woman who's really talented talking about how, you know, she does all this. Well, the first thing was that the, the model completely changed. So before it was— and this is the same in books too, really, to an extent— before the contract was the idea, you know, the kind of social contract in a sense was that if you're— you be talented and we'll get you your audience. That's the deal. And then, and that's the split. But now you've got to get your audience first, and then you might get a record deal or a publishing deal. So that's, that's really hard. Um, and then this poor woman was saying, oh, and she was making money by, um, I think she had some sponsorship deal with Nescafé. And when I interviewed her, she was making up songs about this freeze-dried coffee in a cup. And I was just like, this is so depressing. And it's like, you know, Kurt Cobain would be turning in his grave. But she was like, no, it's good. At least I get some money this way. I thought, this is a disaster. This is a Like that, like you, I, I can't, I can't accept that, that, that, that this is a good thing for, for, for, for, for, for music. That, that, that this is the model now. It's, it, it was better before when people were having to spend money on albums because there was money to invest in A&R. Like, you know, Britain had one of the most exciting, um, uh, um, music, you know, music scenes in the world.

Yeah.

We, we, we invented, you know, um, genre after genre after genre, trip-hop, drum and bass, jungle. Like in my era working in the record shop, You know, we were constantly coming up with stuff, and now it just doesn't happen anymore. Like, the music the kids are coming up with today sounds like the music they were coming up with in 2001. You know, what is Ed Sheeran? I mean, I love Billie Eilish, she's very talented, and her brother, but it's quite— It sounds so derivative. It sounds exactly like the stuff that was— it was actually a very safe version of Massive Attack, like really safe in a way, you know. So, so, so that's what we've lost. We've lost this great exciting kind of churning, you know, vital industry where there's— that's held together by A&R people who love music throwing money at interesting people. Yeah, that's what it used to be, you know.

It's like culture stopped in 2008 almost. No, no, but it's true.

But there's a truth to that. Like, well, like when you think about that thing of— if you think about what music was like in 1980 versus 1960, There's, you, yeah, it's just vastly different. You've gone through several revolutions. But if you think about what it is, 2026 versus 2006, it's the same. It's essentially the same. It really is. Uh, and that, that, that is something that we've lost. That is something we've lost because of the internet.

But I think because it sits so much at the heart of this podcast and what we're trying to do at Jimmy's Jobs of the Future, right? Because it's, in a way, I believe the world has never been more meritocratic in the sense of you can come from anywhere and you can upload a song or a blog post or whatever it is to the internet, and you can send it to people, and there's a chance that somebody will take a chance on you. But at the same time, like you were saying about you've got to build an audience first, right? That's probably been a shift in the last 5 to 8 years in terms of like the social media side of it being really like, well, you know, you bring the proof to us first.

Yeah.

That you can do it. So it's like this thing of where Yes, it's got easier to make it in life, but the, the, the funnel and the time that it takes almost makes it harder.

But I'm not sure. In, in certain ways it has got easier because I think there are different skills. You can have the skill of being a great writer and the skill of being a great musician, and then there's a skill of building an audience, and that's a different skill. Like, you know, I personally have always struggled with social media. Like, when Twitter happened, I saw all these writers who would— who were perfectly fine writers, but, but they had this genius for Twitter.

Yeah.

And because they had this genius for Twitter, suddenly they were famous, essentially. It was like, bloody hell, how did you do that? And I tried to do that and I couldn't do it because I just don't have the ability to do tweets.

Yeah.

And I still don't. I'm crap at social media, and it has been a massive drag on my career that, that, like, I would be, you know. And so, so, so, so I think that's a problem. I think, I think it's a problem that publishing companies and record companies now expect you to have built your own audience, because what if that's not what you're good at? Yeah, you know, really that should be the job of the, of the company.

That's—

you'd be the talent.

Yeah, the talent should be the talent, and the publishing company and the record company should, should be the person finding the audience for you. That's how it used to be.

Yeah, I think it's true as well, because I, I also think that one of the things that we talk about jobs is that we think of them as singular tasks, right? And actually most of the time they're a collection of tasks. And, and the, the almost with all jobs as well is they're getting wider and wider things. Like journalism, the classic, used to be able to just be a writer, or just like now you need to do like, yeah, yeah, right? Like all of which have their own sort of like rack of skills and so on. Charlie XCX wrote this fascinating piece on Substack about the life of being a pop star.

Yeah.

Recently, and just partly her saying like quite a lot of it's about sitting in kind of like gray rooms and build— you know, you see the bit on stage, but actually it's like all this like gray in between. And just also how she has to do all these other things, and like she also has a creative outlet for them, like her Substack is brilliant, and the piece is, is definitely worth a read for those interested in, in jobs. But I just— yeah, it's that we— again, it's like demanding more and more of people to be Well, I guess it's a classic thing about having— be, you know, it's kind of width over depth, right?

Yeah, yeah, that, that's, that's right. And actually, another, um, really talented young British musician, Pink Pantheress, who's from near my neck of the woods, was— I saw an interview with her recently, and she was talking that— saying that she knows some incredible young musicians, but they're just not good at branding themselves. And she was kind of saying to them— and she's great at branding, at branding herself, you know— but, but, but she she was saying if only they could have this, they could start doing that, then they could become successful. And I was like, sure, but it's a shame that— as I said, there used to be teams of people figuring out that stuff for you. You put these clothes on, you know, we're gonna get your hair done, you know.

There were these 4 or 5 magazines.

There were these experts that would train you and help you to do that stuff. And, you know, somebody like Pink Pantheress, or even Charlie XCX, have got a genius for that kind of personal branding. I mean, yeah, you can spot— you could see Charli XCX in a crowd from a mile away. She's so distinctive. But, but, but yeah, so they're kind of lucky in the sense that they're extremely talented musicians, both of those women. But they're also fantastic at that, that kind of branding side of it. And indeed, I think PinkPantheress did come up through TikTok. That's actually— yeah, that's how she— that was her route. She was doing songs on TikTok.

Definitely. I'm going to ask you at some point for talented writers that we might not be aware of, but I won't spring it on you like— I mean, but like, we'll definitely— we do that kind of like Um, pass the mic thing and stuff.

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