The Proof Economy

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Harvard’s own dean of undergraduate education recently made a startling admission in the New York Times: “Students feel the need to distinguish themselves outside the classroom because they are essentially indistinguishable inside the classroom.“

This isn’t just about grade inflation—it’s a tacit acknowledgment that even at America’s most prestigious university, the classroom has become secondary. 

The real differentiation happens elsewhere.

We’ve entered the Proof Economy—a world where the most valuable signal isn’t where you went to school, what your GPA was, or which honors you collected, but what you’ve actually done. In this new landscape, demonstrated ability trumps pedigree, and what you’ve built matters more than where you studied.

Meanwhile, the Parchment Economy—that centuries-old system where formal credentials and institutional validation serve as proxies for capability—is losing its monopoly on opportunity. The elaborate dance of transcripts, recommendation letters, diplomas and prestige markers is becoming increasingly irrelevant in field after field.

Yet our education system and even many of us parents remain trapped in credential inflation, preparing students for a world that’s rapidly disappearing. We continue pushing our children to play the old game—chasing grades, padding resumes, climbing the endless ladder—while a new game with entirely different rewards has already begun and is accelerating.

The cost? 

Crucial adolescent developmental years spent chasing grades, test scores, and hollow accolades that won’t matter—instead of building tangible proof of real capability. 

Paper doesn’t prove performance anymore.

Don’t Bring a Résumé. Bring Receipts.

This evolution didn’t start with schools—which have barely changed since the 1940s. 

It started in the wild.

Gig economy platforms pioneered the approach: Elance (1999, later Upwork), Freelancer (2009), and Fiverr (2010) created some of the first truly credential-blind marketplaces. In these ecosystems, no one asked where you went to college—they asked to see your previous work and client reviews. The work was the résumé.

Design and development platforms followed: GitHub (2008), Behance (2006), and Dribbble (2009) reshaped how creative and technical professionals are hired. They made portfolios—not pedigrees—the dominant signal.

The creator economy amplified the trend: YouTubers, indie developers, and small business creators began generating real revenue, loyal audiences, and product ecosystems. Their subscriber counts and Shopify dashboards became their credentials.

Bootcamps and alternative certifications emerged: As demand grew for provable skill, programs like General Assembly (2011), Flatiron School (2012), and Google Career Certificates arose. These offered faster, cheaper pathways to jobs, with proof of skill embedded in the output.

Blogs & media platforms unbundled expertise: Blogs were the first attempt at this and then platforms like Substack (2017) let individual writers attract paying audiences without institutional affiliation. Joe Rogan, with his podcast launched in 2009, built an influential media empire that dwarfs any mainstream outlet with no journalism degree, just consistency and reach. Proof, not parchment.

Big Tech finally formalized the shift: Between 2018 and 2021, Google, IBM, Apple, and Bank of America removed degree requirements for many roles. Not to be progressive—but because performance data proved degrees weren’t predictive. Outcomes were.

More recently, Palantir issued their “College is Broken” recruitment message for high school students—a savvy recognition of this new reality.

Even historically, parchment was primarily a first-job passport. 

After that initial role, what mattered was what you had accomplished—your track record of results. What’s changed is that proof of capability is now moving earlier in the career journey, often preceding or replacing formal credentials entirely.

Innovation Always Starts on the Edge

Tech, design, media—these aren’t just industries. They’re early indicators. They operate at the edges of change, and historically, that’s how major shifts happen.

Consider how tech innovations have already transformed how we work: remote collaboration tools pioneered by tech companies became mainstream during COVID; agile methodologies replaced rigid planning across industries; and open-source approaches to problem-solving now appear in fields from science to government.

The Proof Economy follows this same pattern. What began on the edge—where flexibility was highest and speed mattered most—is now steadily permeating finance, healthcare, education, and retail.

As Hemingway noted about change: it happens “gradually, then suddenly.” The Proof Economy’s ascent is following this exact trajectory—and AI’s rapid development will only accelerate it, making the demonstration of capabilities easier while further diminishing reliance on traditional credentials. When anyone can access expertise through prompts, the value shifts decisively from knowledge possession to knowledge application.

Eroding Trust: The Institutional Credibility Crisis

The Proof Economy isn’t just emerging because of technological innovation—it’s also filling a vacuum left by declining institutional trust.

Pew Research Center’s long-running studies show that trust in government has fallen from 73% in 1958 to 22% in 2024. 

Similarly, confidence in higher education has experienced a sharp decline, with only 36% of Americans expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in colleges and universities by 2023—down from 57% in 2015 (source: Gallup).

This erosion isn’t limited to government and education. 

Media, religious institutions, banks, healthcare systems, and corporations have all experienced significant trust deficits, especially among younger generations.

When institutional credibility weakens, their endorsements—including the degrees and credentials they issue—naturally lose value. People seek more direct, verifiable evidence of capability when they can no longer rely on institutional proxies. 

Proof fills the gap that parchment once occupied.

This helps explain why the Proof Economy gained traction so quickly: it wasn’t just a more efficient method of evaluation, but a necessary response to institutional legitimacy challenges. 

When people stop trusting the signatories, they stop trusting the signatures.

Schools Haven’t Gotten the Memo

Despite all this, schools still behave as if parchment reigns supreme.

Students are rewarded for compliance. 

Grades dominate. 

Transcripts are the main product. 

Assignments disappear the moment they’re turned in. 

Projects rarely have an audience beyond a teacher and a rubric.

We say we’re preparing kids for the future. But most schools are still optimized for a past that’s quickly evaporating.

What Education Needs to Become

If we accept that we’re entering the Proof Economy, schools can’t just add a few electives or tweak their grading system. 

They need to rewire what they reward.

We should expect:

• Projects over problem sets – Real-world challenges that apply knowledge, not just recall it.
• Portfolios over transcripts – A body of work that shows thinking, skill, and growth.
• Public work over private grading – Output that lives in the world, not a Google Doc.
• Coaching over compliance – Adults who challenge and support, not just evaluate.
• Failure as fuel – A system that treats failed attempts as essential steps, not permanent marks.

Some schools are reimaginging education to make these changes. Most are not. And even those who try are often stuck translating new ideas into an old system.

Which means the responsibility will fall—at least in part—on parents.

What We (Parents) Can Do Right Now

We don’t need to opt out of college (although many are). 

But we do need to opt into reality.

If our children’s schools still live in the parchment paradigm, here’s what we can do:

• Help our kids build something – A blog, a newsletter, a Shopify store, even a YouTube series. Something with a beginning, middle, and end.
• Prioritize output over titles – Choose extracurriculars where something gets made: sets for a play, a community event, a short film. Replace one “résumé activity” with a real project that delivers measurable impact.
• Reframe summers as build periods – A $500 revenue-generating venture provides more developmental value than another forced internship. (and will teach actual financial literacy)
• Ask different questions – Not “What grade did you get?” but “What problem did you solve?” Not “What club position did you win?” but “Who benefited from your work?” Not “Where do you want to go to college?” but “What do you want to build?”

Sometimes, we parents cannot wait for the system to catch up. 

The Shift To Proof Is Quiet. But It’s Here.

The parchment isn’t dead. But it’s lost its monopoly.

The real edge now? 

Receipts. 

Projects. 

Proof.

The sooner we let our kids start building those, the better chance they’ll have in the world that’s already here—but unevenly distributed.

We have a choice: keep preparing students for a world that’s fading, or adapt to the one that’s taking shape.

The Choice Ahead

Let’s be clear:

If your child graduates with a perfect GPA, a packed résumé, and no real proof they can build, lead, or solve problems—

You didn’t prepare them for the future.

You prepared them for a world that no longer exists.

This isn’t a gentle shift.
It’s a hard pivot.
From parchment to proof.
From performance on paper to performance in public.

The system won’t make this change fast enough.
So parents must. Forward-thinking educators must. Now.

Because in ten years, the question won’t be “Where did you go to school?”

It’ll be: “What have you actually built that mattered?”

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Note: Parchment remains critical in certain specialized fields — medicine, structural engineering, etc —where formal training and certification are essential safeguards. But these represent a small percentage of the overall job market. Even in these fields, the ability to demonstrate practical capability is becoming increasingly important alongside formal credentials.