I guess from plain statistics, you could say that the number of talented people from wealthy backgrounds is roughly the same as talented people generally, so my

I guess from plain statistics, you could say that the number of talented people from wealthy backgrounds is roughly the same as talented people generally, so my feeling is that there is a sizable slice of jobs where you just secure rents through connections and you don't actually need to be talented. From my observations, some industries (film, for instance) will give people a chance, then get rid of them if they don't work out - so a lot of people I vaguely knew had very brief acting careers. Other companies seem to trundle along with really dysfunctional leadership, for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, I suspect it's because the explicit aim of the company (say, mining) is not what the company is actually doing (say, some kind of rent extraction) so it doesn't matter that the CEO has no skills to speak of. Also, when you know the people, and you see like an interview they've given, you can usually tell if they're bullshitting.