I had mixed feelings about this piece for reasons related to what you're mentioning. I've been the target of this sort of thing at points in my life, being the

I had mixed feelings about this piece for reasons related to what you're mentioning. I've been the target of this sort of thing at points in my life, being the high performer I suppose, but have also seen the converse of it. I imagine this varies by field, but I notice two counterpoints to the perspective in the piece: First, in my field there is a ton of corruption and lack of integrity. Glimpses into this appear in places like HN, but even then coverage seem to excuse the corruption away in Machiavellian ways I find infuriating. I know I have benefited from this corruption even when I'm trying to avoid it, but I see it all the time. Most importantly, it seems the likelihood of corruption increases exponentially with the level of "performance" in the field, so that the difference between someone performing highly versus very highly is often due to corruption or sociopolitical whims. Second, even when there probably are genuine differences in performance, it's often very small, but the compensation gets magnified 10x. So, for example, the difference between the highest performer and the next highest performer might be small in an absolute practical sense, but the highest performer might see their salary increased significantly, while the next highest sees their salary frozen. In either of these cases, the inequity is very real. If these researchers came in and studied my field, what they'd really be picking up on is justified resentment. If you generalize this to society at large I think there are significant implications. Inequality is a major problem in many places, and I strongly believe the extent of it is unwarranted in general. I view the research in the article with extreme skepticism because it is incredibly naive. It seems to assume that all (or most of) the metrics of performance are valid, are warranted, and that everyone attains status on those metrics in ethical, morally defensible ways, or that their status on those metrics reflects themselves rather than the output of a complex, quasi-random system of social inputs.