[zharknado]

Alternative hypothesis—-efficiency. Executives are very, very busy. As long as you can figure out what they mean, polish doesn’t add much. (Unless it does because it’s an earnings call, board meeting, etc.)

I’m quite convinced in most cases they are not spending time or energy consciously choosing to signal anything about status. They’re just not willing to pay the opportunity cost of keeping their attention on an internal communication any longer than the minimum required. They’re certainly capable of polished communication, but deploy that skill selectively when the return on investment is high.

It’s a classic rookie pitfall to over-index on form instead of content (guilty myself many times). It’s more instructive to pay attention to which questions and ideas powerful people focus on than the forms they use to deliver them (which are not as important, turns out).

[jgwil2]

The examples in the article are conspicuously unpolished. Autocorrect catches all of this stuff nowadays. Somebody had to make an effort to write that badly.

[Spivak]

Signaling happens whether you choose to do it on purpose or bo not. The people who are best at it don't do intentionally.

The busy CEO is signaling status with this form of writing, they're so important and so many people demand their time that they have to skip on polish. That's the definition of status.