The second-best place to be is much less good than the best place. Because everyone who thinks it’s important to be in the best place and can be, is, as are everyone who thinks it’s important to be seen as one of the people who can be in the best place. So you only get people/organizations which either can’t move to the best place, or don’t think it’s important to be in the best place and don’t mind that other people will largely infer that they can’t move to the best place. Since most things are two-sided markets and which place you are in is a quality signal in those markets, this cuts off a lot of upside potential for the ambitious.
On the other hand, the second-best place selects for people who don’t care strongly about optimizing for legible signals, which is probably a plus. (An instance of this: In undergrad the dorm that, in my opinion, had the best culture was the run-down dorm that was far from campus.)
In undergrad the dorm that, in my opinion, had the best culture was the run-down dorm that was far from campus.
This was my experience at Swarthmore as well. But I think a lot of that came from this being a dorm that essentially, any student who wanted to live there would be able to get a room. The analogy would push toward choosing a place that has much cheaper housing costs!
The second-best place to be is much less good than the best place. Because everyone who thinks it’s important to be in the best place and can be, is, as are everyone who thinks it’s important to be seen as one of the people who can be in the best place. So you only get people/organizations which either can’t move to the best place, or don’t think it’s important to be in the best place and don’t mind that other people will largely infer that they can’t move to the best place. Since most things are two-sided markets and which place you are in is a quality signal in those markets, this cuts off a lot of upside potential for the ambitious.
On the other hand, the second-best place selects for people who don’t care strongly about optimizing for legible signals, which is probably a plus. (An instance of this: In undergrad the dorm that, in my opinion, had the best culture was the run-down dorm that was far from campus.)
This was my experience at Swarthmore as well. But I think a lot of that came from this being a dorm that essentially, any student who wanted to live there would be able to get a room. The analogy would push toward choosing a place that has much cheaper housing costs!