Comment by flumpcakes
5 hours ago
I think the OP was making the point that it isn't meritocratic, at least that is how it read to me: they thought people where not meaningfully different in skill level (the people at the exclusive company being comparable to everywhere else) and that where you worked was the new way to find the 'in' people, rather than what university you graduated from (saying they had job offers based purely on getting the job at the exclusive company).
You could argue that getting a job at X or Y company by itself conveys some level of skill - but if we are honest, that is just version of saying you went to Harvard.
There's lots of cliques everywhere in life, and various ways to show status, SV is definitely not immune to that.
Yes, that is what OP is saying, I'm just not very convinced. Primarily because his sample size is quite small – he says the people in his smaller, non-SV jobs were just as competent as those in the SV company, but that could mean a number of things that are not "SV isn't meritocratic". For example, it could just be that his previous colleagues were more competent than the actual national/global average, which seems probable.