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With any luck Olympic medals will no longer be handed out based on who crosses the finish line first! Sure luck plays a part, but to find fault with someones a

With any luck Olympic medals will no longer be handed out based on who crosses the finish line first! Sure luck plays a part, but to find fault with someones accomplishments because they are lucky? Very weak argument. People succeed due to luck, perseverance, and hard work. In some cases it is smart work. Imagine no longer finding value in a person who has started and then sold a company. They have value and merit far above someone just out of school. Simple fact.

mjfl 8y ago
> Imagine no longer finding value in a person who has started and then sold a company. This is a great point. One could imagine comparing two candidates for a job, one had started and sold a company, the other just coming out of school. For the meritocracy total-denier the two candidates have equal prospects - since it must have been luck that the one candidate was able to build and sell their company. In practice this is completely false, the candidate that sold their company is light years better than any given recent grad.
- apacheCamel 8y ago
  I can understand this but at the same time it could possibly go the other way. What if the person sold the company because it was going downhill? What if it wasn't properly managed and the whole thing was sold just to get rid of it? I would say someone who has experience building and selling a company has value but not in every situation and it isn't always 'light years' ahead.
  - mjfl 8y ago
    I would say the fact that someone would pay for their company, no matter what the situation is, puts them light years ahead. There's no stronger signal than someone else being willing to part with cash in order to obtain the rights their work.
- arandr0x 8y ago
  Although they're light years better because of their experience, not because of any inherent merit that starting a company suddenly revealed. By far the most disgusting implementation of meritocracy is when people believe that some people are simply better than others, and their track record is a way of identifying them, when in truth, most people's track record is dumb luck but that dumb luck shaped them into quite different (and differently useful) humans. The corollary to this is it's always worth to give a young person who has great desire to help a chance, no matter where they come from, because maybe this dumb luck (or grace on your part) will make them into, well, the kind of person that starts and sells their company.

mjfl 8y ago

> Imagine no longer finding value in a person who has started and then sold a company. This is a great point. One could imagine comparing two candidates for a job, one had started and sold a company, the other just coming out of school. For the meritocracy total-denier the two candidates have equal prospects - since it must have been luck that the one candidate was able to build and sell their company. In practice this is completely false, the candidate that sold their company is light years better than any given recent grad.

apacheCamel 8y ago
I can understand this but at the same time it could possibly go the other way. What if the person sold the company because it was going downhill? What if it wasn't properly managed and the whole thing was sold just to get rid of it? I would say someone who has experience building and selling a company has value but not in every situation and it isn't always 'light years' ahead.
- mjfl 8y ago
  I would say the fact that someone would pay for their company, no matter what the situation is, puts them light years ahead. There's no stronger signal than someone else being willing to part with cash in order to obtain the rights their work.
arandr0x 8y ago
Although they're light years better because of their experience, not because of any inherent merit that starting a company suddenly revealed. By far the most disgusting implementation of meritocracy is when people believe that some people are simply better than others, and their track record is a way of identifying them, when in truth, most people's track record is dumb luck but that dumb luck shaped them into quite different (and differently useful) humans. The corollary to this is it's always worth to give a young person who has great desire to help a chance, no matter where they come from, because maybe this dumb luck (or grace on your part) will make them into, well, the kind of person that starts and sells their company.