Here's the secret: it's still just gambling. Elon musk isn't a trillionaire because he brought something special to the table; it's because he was able to perform the martigale enough times and he arbitrarily reached the top.

Hiring is exactly the same thing, even when trying to do it on merit, people are simply poor judges of character, ability and the rest.

Most of society is governed by people who simply kept getting lucky and kept doubling down because their ego demanded it and their last roll of the dice didn't drive them to poverty or happiness.