Wealth has a compounding effect.If your parents have the means to provide you tutoring lessons and a private education at top institutions from an early age, th

Wealth has a compounding effect.If your parents have the means to provide you tutoring lessons and a private education at top institutions from an early age, this has a stronger influence that mere talent. Talent is just not a good term to use here, it obfuscates that actual talent is rare compared to the much more common state of being "well taught and prepared," which is very much correlated to wealth and geography. Who gets to go to Top Schools in France? An majority of sons and daughters of Parisians. And I wouldn't imply top talents mostly occur in Paris. Entry into Grandes Ecoles is usually a function of three things: knowledge, preparedness, and, indeed, talent. But that last variable has a much lesser effect that what people tend to assume.