Here's the secret: it's still just gambling. Elon musk isn't a trillionaire because he brought something special to the table; it's because he was able to perform the martigale enough times and he arbitrarily reached the top.

Hiring is exactly the same thing, even when trying to do it on merit, people are simply poor judges of character, ability and the rest.

Most of society is governed by people who simply kept getting lucky and kept doubling down because their ego demanded it and their last roll of the dice didn't drive them to poverty or happiness.

There’s certainly luck involved, but it’s not random.

Why aren’t there more Elon Musks? It’s not like the universe just picks a rando every 1000 years and it’s Elon Musk now and Mansa Musa last time.

I think similarly, there are random elements but hiring is not random. People aren’t randomly successful or not. There are many factors, most based on individual decisions and group alignments, I think.

People really want _their_ position to be meritocracy because their ego can't handle alternatives of a chaotic world.