What is 'pure meritocratic'? I don't know how you would even come up with a definition where everyone agrees that a system should be judged by 'these given rule

What is 'pure meritocratic'? I don't know how you would even come up with a definition where everyone agrees that a system should be judged by 'these given rules' to be declared 'pure meritocratic'. At the end, life is much more nuanced. E.g. let's say we both decide to create competitor to Yelp. We both are smart, driven and we will produce a high quality, spam free alternative to Yelp. However, we need funding to achieve this goal. We both went to school with someone who is now partner at VC firm. But I was his very good friend v/s you, who was just a classmate to him. He is very well aware that both of us are smart, hard working individuals. Who do you think is he going to fund? Do you think it's un-meritocratic for him to pick me over you? Life is not black and white, it has five million shades of grey. We do not have perfect solutions for everything but rather a 'best solution' for the situation at end. I believe that Silicon Valley is the most (not pure) meritocratic place on earth. This is similar to the debate of capitalism. Capitalism is not perfect, it has many problems. But compared to all the other alternatives human race have tried (socialism, anarchism, communism), it is the best option.