What do you mean here by linear combination? If you wrote the same thing and said nonlinear combination would we have come away with a different interpretation? Is this just injecting random math terms to raise the status and credibility of the speaker?
It's a problem I see in a certain non-MBA culture (and am guilty of myself all the time too).
Or maybe I'm just missing something about what you meant.
> What do you mean here by linear combination?
I suspect that Michael means that the people who claim on leadership position without having proved themselves will justify their self entitlement x % by their pre-existing social resources and (1-x) % by what they think of themselves.
Yes, you don't have to hold an MBA to think like that, but a diploma from a prestigious institution sure helps boost your ego, and being born from wealthy parents helps as well.
A linear model is the simplest model, which is sometimes an asset (in some cases, linear regression is the best statistical model for its simplicity) and sometimes makes it crude and underfit to the problem. I was focusing on the latter.