Silicon Valley really, really wants to be a meritocracy. Nope. It really doesn't. It wants to be perceived as a meritocracy. That's a different goal entirely.

Silicon Valley really, really wants to be a meritocracy. Nope. It really doesn't. It wants to be perceived as a meritocracy. That's a different goal entirely. It's the same privileged, well-connected "MBA culture", but in the 21st century, MBA stands for "Meritocracy By Assertion". VC doesn't want not to be a clubby, relationship-based business, because who-you-know cultures are great at giving the well-connected an extortive power that they wouldn't otherwise have. ("Those who question the meritocracy will be de-meritized.") Sure, there are Silicon Valley engineers who want to live in (and believe in) meritocracy, but they're not the people with the power. You can get an employee position on merit, but if you want to ascend to the founder or investor ranks and get real equity in the Valley... you still have to be a child of the old empire. It was hard to read the rest of this article after this critical miss.