I'm skeptical these status ladders truly exist outside of the author's imagination, but then again I've never been part of that side of tech culture. It doesn't ring true of my own experience where pretty much every technical person sees other technical people on equal footing. This includes "big names" in tech that I've spoken with.

Edited to add: what's hypothetical about Alice being happy to run a coffee shop or Bob satisfied being a 90th percentile engineer (measured how?)? Plenty of these people exist, I've met them!

The author very briefly mentions "bigtech employees" and "famous bloggers" - I think that's a small part of something larger which is worth talking more about: the internet creates a giant monoculture. I think it takes at least a little more passion and grit to create e.g. YouTube content than it used to 10-15 years ago. Now, you post videos, then see massive influencers (whether you like them or not) such as Mr. Beast and the like, and it's hard not to compare yourself to them. That's just one example but I think it applies to a lot of things: music, visual art, writing, etc. How hard is it now to be #1 rising on RoyalRoad, for example, compared to a year or two after the site started. You start playing guitar and the TikTok/Reels/Shorts algorithm feeds you video after video of pretty darn good amateur guitarists. It can be both inspiring and discouraging to see how big the skill gap is.

Related link: Gwern's "The Melancholy of Subculture Society" https://gwern.net/subculture