One story that I always remember is a company in financial services. They only hire Oxbridge. For decades, 95% of the senior staff went to Oxbridge. They were,

One story that I always remember is a company in financial services. They only hire Oxbridge. For decades, 95% of the senior staff went to Oxbridge. They were, according to themselves, the elite. Unf, and maybe not surprisingly, they are infamous for blowing up every few years. You name the hot, new trend...they will be balls deep and a few years from total destruction. After going "all-in" on Japan in 1989, they were feeling a bit sheepish and decided to do something extraordinary: hire a poor person. The guy they hired went to the local uni, very smart, and the definition of self-starter/independent thinker. Within three years, he was out. Hired instantly somewhere else, and went on to make tens of millions (retired in late-40s). The point is: actual ability does not matter to 99% of companies. This guy was one of the most able employees possible, he could have made literally billions for his first employer but that didn't stop him getting canned because he was an independent thinker (despite only hiring from Oxbridge, this company is known for having a "group-think" culture...work that one out). You can definitely make money from this inefficiency - turning 0xers into 1xers - but most companies are actively choosing not to do this. I know of another company in the same industry that hires front office staff out of a single pool that rotates through operations/sales/marketing/etc. Pretty much exclusively hire from non-targets, focus heavily on training/teamwork. They have acquired pretty much all of the competition local to me: they come in, fire all the Oxbridge guys, and move their teams in. In the 80s, they managed a few million. Now they manage half a trillion. This model works...but try telling someone that went to an elite uni that they could hire someone with half the training, at half the cost, and get (at least) the same result...they will never believe that (and, unf, tech has almost the same dynamic as finance where some people believe that having a certain piece of paper means you are better at everything).