Why Did Claude Shannon Ignore Scientific Celebrity?

David Senra, reading the book's account, says Claude Shannon ignored scientific celebrity because indifference was how he worked. He made a principle of indifference and chased his instincts, often at the expense of more prestigious options. He was chasing those instincts when he wrote the paper on information theory.

After the paper, a following built and he became a scientific celebrity. Bell Labs sent him carte blanche. He could go to MIT and do whatever he wanted, because they wanted to be associated with him. The book's comparison, as Senra reads it, is that Shannon is to communications as Einstein is to physics.

Shannon did not care about the celebrity or the offers. Unlike many scientists who turned a research career into a life as a public intellectual, he did not use the standing to expand his network. He closed himself off, ignoring letters, colleagues, and projects, and spent his time on the puzzles that interested him.