The Dynamics of Anointment and Social Status

In Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in A Winner-Take-Most World, Toby Stuart dives deeply into the power that social status holds over us.

Stuart is the Leo Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In his new book, he explores how social status shapes everything—from who we trust and what we value, to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.

In his conversation with Adam Job, Senior Director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the cumulative effects of social status, whereby small initial differences can snowball into outsize effects. He also outlines why the social status system persists despite a prevailing distrust in elites—and how AI may yet be poised to change the system.

Key topics discussed: 

01:44 | The importance of social status

05:15 | The role of anointment in modern times

13:23 | The cumulative effects of social status

19:18 | Why the social status system persists

21:23 | How AI may change the role of social status

24:45 | The downsides of high social status, and how to deal with them