The thing described in the article is what I would call "pull meritocracy". You have a pool of candidates and you pull well-educated, predictable, safe ones fro

The thing described in the article is what I would call "pull meritocracy". You have a pool of candidates and you pull well-educated, predictable, safe ones from there. Leaving behind both privileged but not able and able but not predictable people. The ideal would be "push meritocracy", where able people push themself into the system and are able to reach their potential by exercising their ability. There are also multiple ways to do it (starting up, corporate/government ladder, non-commercial projects) so they don't get derailed over some personality quirk.