"I considered her opinion on tech to be invalid when she claimed that tech isn't merit based."

How is tech merit based? Truthfully, most vocational jobs are more merit-based than technology. We see technology companies filtering on a long list of items (school attended, age, etc.) that have very little to do with merit. If you have had opportunity, technology is a wonderful career, but it just isn't merit-based. It does suffer from the same problems as every other professional career.

The merit-based utopia meme needs to leave so we can actually look at the trends and decide if some things need correcting.