One thing that leads us astray here is that the selector seems to be in a position of power. That makes him seem like a judge. If you regard someone … - Paul Graham

Measurement and Leverage To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage. You need to be in a position where your performance can be measured, or there is no way to get paid more by doing more. And you have to have leverage, in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect.

Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they’ll tend to become nerds.

Ideology makes you doubly likely to be mistaken. You not only receive your beliefs as a matching set, which makes it extremely unlikely that they're all correct; you also can't change any of them, or you'll seem a backslider to your peers.