The undergrads won't be judging the Nobel Prize winner or asking him/her to justify their work. The prize winner will not be sweating or struggling. The flow of status goes in the other direction - the undergrads are supposed to be grateful that the great prize winner has agreed to spend some time with them.

Entrepreneur and money men conversations could just as easily happen with everyone sitting on sofas. The adversarial panel approach is intended to be challenging and adversarial - which is only possible if those who are doing the challenging have higher status and feel a need to display it.

There's a case to be made for the suggestion that the primary product of the entire global economy is status signalling. Physical and intellectual invention is a useful byproduct, but most things in most corporations and markets seem to happen because one primate subgroup wants to impress, seduce, or intimidate some other primate subgroup.

Undergrads are the paying customers in you example, so they are in charge and the Nobel Prize winner is delivering a service they have paid for and his is expected to satisfy his customers! Yeah, in the bigger overall picture of life and things he's above them, but in that particular situation he's their bitch...

At least this is how I always viewed my teachers, even having benefited from free higher education (and the teachers were way richer than me): they were there to satisfy my needs (for knowledge), just as the McDonals' worker was there to satisfy my need (for a burger).