It doesn't have to be binary there. It can be merit-based and heavily dependent on having friends in the club. And that's not a special property of the MBA folks. That is to say, you might be good enough to be a lead engineer at Google, and they're not going to give you that job if you aren't, but it's still a whole lot easier to put yourself into the position of being able to do that if people in your network work at Google. MBAs are no different. You don't get to be a VP of finance because you used to do bong hits with the CEO, but if you're someone who is able to do the job of VP of finance (and can convince people of that), then that connection to the CEO is hugely valuable.