Meritocracy vs Elite Privilege

Competent Elites - The World is Stratified by Genuine Competencehttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16186279

It sounds like you have a background and exposure to people who might have many enabling success factors. Shiny credentials might be one but social networks are another. Collectively, they might be contributing to the success you suggest is not deserved, but I’m not sure that’s an obvious argument. People of these backgrounds could probably game any gating ritual.Perhaps we should focus on drawing more actual talent rather than excluding the phonies (even at the highest levels, status and inf

I know people blocked by this. Usually they're people who had an easy time at expensive schools, they now can't accept that they're anything other than brilliant and deserve the top jobs based on their raw 'talent' alone. Those who can work their way up from the unglamorous positions at the bottom are the ones doing well, and often leapfrog those with an easier starting position due to it.

The problem being: access to a prestiges career or opportunity is generally predicated on climbing the academics achievement ladder at an increasingly early age. This leaves the more esoteric people out in the cold. If your not a true prodigy whose achievements outshine the highly credentialed you will struggle to get on.

I think a lot of people might not notice it happen but it definitely happens and is common. And not just in FAANG's but in most companies. There are special people who, by virtue of something, end up being the "golden children" and are put on the express train through promotions. For reasons completely unexplainable if you believe in egalitarianism. You've got a team of people, and some NewGuy joins. They seem like your peer: they're at your level! You don&

This is the problem I am trying to address. The culture of achievement is a privilege reserved for upper strata of society.This question belongs on a country club application not on tech job application. Tech industry is one of last few places in america where one can hope to turn things around in life. Become great by getting exposure to new ideas and new memes.

These guys aren't privileged ruling class elites. They have no skills and paths and connections needed to see successes in such ventures. I actually think that is how China now has "football fields full of engineers", the competitive environment in Far East regions had been so over the top that qualities that should make somebody cream of the crop globally only float them halfway down the mug locally.

No, only for those with proper creds - top school, top of the class, etc.

I think your conclusion is right for most people, but you're a bit too cynical. The system isn't rigged purposefully. It is just that the people who decide who gets the elite jobs all act a certain way and had similar backgrounds. Naturally they like people like themselves and so the jobs go to those people. Even then, there are lots of qualified people from those backgrounds who don't get those jobs. Everyone is competing for a purely positional advantage (i.e. in order to move u

People used the association with the elite institutions as a substitution for any sort of analysis about their strategy or actual credentials. It's not that the association caused the issue, but it allowed these people access to people and money they normally would never have. You aren't more likely to be a crook if you have parents who are professors at MIT, but your scams are more likely to be successful and people are less likely to use common sense because they are more likely to