Musk first arrived in Canada alone at 17 with very little money and worked manual labor jobs to make ends meet. When he first got to Silicon Valley he basically spent his first six months there locked away in his room coding the initial version of Zip2 which he co-founded with his little brother. What more do you want to decide someone succeeded by their own intelligence and drive as opposed to connections?

FFS, why would people with merit not have connections?

The two aren't opposites, hiring someone you've worked with before and who's skills you've seen in action is different from hiring your drinking buddy regardless of their skill level.

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.

You can create that 'meritocratic rep' by creating something that not many other people can do, with software. As you become involved in the community providing value, people would want to work with you more just by the results of your work. That is what is meant by 'meritocratic'.

That's baloney, no one thinks that. Connections matter but if you're good, you can get good jobs, found companies and raise money.

I really like that the folks at Github recently changed their stance on this. http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug

[edit] Wow, those comments. Lewis' Law in action... maybe I should have linked somewhere else.

I think "meritocratic" also means that if I'm good, I can ask someone, who will refer me to someone, who will refer me to someone who will give me a job / invest in my startup, because the people recommending trust each adjacent link in the chain that it won't suggest someone who isn't good.

Such recommendations, on average, might be even better than job interviews as a way to find talent.