Who first emigrated to Canada, where he attended Canada's most prestigious business school for two years before transferring to the United States' most prestigious business school.
> Peter Thiel was a German-born lawyer trading derivatives at Credit Suisse
After which he ran his own hedge fund for two years, then co-founded PayPal.
These guys certainly had more merit than many people, but to hold them up as people who succeeded with merit over connections is silly.
That still seems like a boundary value at one end of the personal merit vs. connections continuum of drivers of success, as contrasted with the other end of the continuum, which we might define as being a VP at JP Morgan because your dad is on the politburo standing committee of the PRC.