“The winners use success as a reason to dismiss the forces working against everyone else.” Emily Chang

“A true meritocracy is impossible to achieve. I love Kara Swisher’s term mirror-tocracy. It perfectly encapsulates the idea. That we hire people who look like us. The reality is that we all come to the plate with different kinds of access. The escalator of life moves far faster for some than others. When you believe you’re operating in a meritocracy, you’ll be more anti-meritocratic.”

“There’s a study that shows people who believe they work in a meritocracy are the least meritocratic of all. They don’t acknowledge their biases. What is it, Avenue Q? ‘Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist’ Everybody has these biases. If you’re not cognizant of them, you can’t compensate for them”

“The actual word meritocracy was coined by a British sociologist Michael Young in the 1950s to warn about a future where people use their success to justify their success. The winners use success as a reason to dismiss the forces working against everyone else.”

Source: Katie Couric – 62. Silicon Valley’s Toxic Bro Culture