This is a particular class of fallacy that I sort of disagree with.
"the world is a meritocracy" is only a fallacy in a very strongly worded version of that statement.
Saying something like, "talent is a factor in career trajectory" or "education is correlated to income" should be non-controversial.
The "fallacy" here is people assuming that the trend true in the broad case will also be true in all cases.
Yes of course, it's not true that more education will guarantee more income. That doesn't mean you should invest in education.
Based on my experience I would feel comfortable standing by the statement, "the world has a trend towards meritocracy" with the important caveat that merit can be particularly difficult to define, as OP is pointing out. It would be reductivist to assume the 'merit' of a tech entrepreneur is based solely on programming ability for instance.