To be fair, everyone kind of already knew that "it's all about who you know", so to speak. So the fact that disenfranchised people tend to stay disenfranchised is not really news to most people who followed the inevitable implications of that adage.

Nobody really understands or digs into the implications. They simply assume that if they are successful it's because they are great people while others are not great or as smart or hard working and that's why they suck. It's very difficult for privilege to understand implicit privilege... or for those looking to fix the situation to not piss people off as it's seen with those that are already in the in-group as being unfair.

This has a name, btw:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

But a major part of networking is charisma. Or, as Andy Warhol said, "Without charisma, you're dead."

> The dark side of that is discrimination when "someone they enjoy working with" is based on more than a friendly attitude and hard work.

In my experience friendly or not, people tend to be quite honest when vouching or generally asked an opinion on someone.

Referring a bad candidate (or an incompetent one) will damage your reputation/credibility, and most people don't want that.

That's true, but it only solves one side of the problem, where unqualified people won't get hired by pure networking. If people only get hired by networking plus performance, it still means that capable people who are pushed out of effective networking (for any of a host of reasons) will lose opportunities. They might not get bad recommendations, they simply won't be on anyone's list to call.

Even worse, it's quite possible for discrimination to become a disincentive to recommending someone, just like incompetence would be. Someone who won't be well-received for personal reasons is effectively a "bad candidate" with the potential to damage the recommender's reputation. The result is that even a person who overcomes barriers to find network connections won't necessarily be able to draw on them effectively.

(A past-tense example to cut down on politics: a Liar's Poker trader wouldn't recommend a friend who couldn't sell, but they also wouldn't recommend a skilled trader who wasn't a friend. And if they had recommended a skilled friend who wasn't a white guy, they could have expected at least as negative a reaction as if they'd recommended a bad trader.)

We don't live in a fair society, and I think we all know that. I would not have experienced the same degree of success if I looked different or had an accent, even if the quality of my work was the same. There's nothing meaningful I can do with that information though.

>"We don't live in a fair society"

I think it's more correct to say that "the state of nature is incredibly unfair, and our society does not perfectly mitigate this."

Of course there is ... "I think we all know that" sits, who knows, in the unconscious. Regularly bringing it to the conscious mind, like in this thread perhaps, reminds us of the possibility of making different, better choices should we have that power now, or one day.

Thats a feature not a bug. Networks are based on trust. You have a shared interest in making sure your recommendations work out and there is nothing more valuable than knowing who you recommend will work out.

Discrimination is based on a realistic assessment of trust?

In the proper context of course it is.

Why would I choose someone I don't know and who I don't know if I can trust when I know someone else who can do the same task, I trust them and are required.

I think more accurately, it's based more on a friendly attitude than hard work.

I don't really agree. I won't vouch for an asshole, but I'd much rather vouch for someone who is reserved and hard-working than overtly friendly but lazy or incompetent. I don't know of anyone I trust that feels different on that (the topic has come up many times).

I think a lot of the debate here lies in the gap between "vouch for" and "recommend".

It's not just whether people would choose friendly incompetence over reserved hard work, but whether the reserved hard worker is going to be a name anyone mentions when it's time to find a candidate.

Network with people that look like/conform to the majority power in your market. They have the same background as other people that are decision makers in that market.

Getting married to one country's politically struggling groups or disenfranchisement issues is playing a totally different game, and is a total waste of time for this game.

I do this in a lot of markets. Almost country by country when necessary. Work with someone that looks like money in that market. Go to the places they are. Don't masquerade your pride of being the front person of your company as 'progress' that society let you get that far just to inspire 4 year olds, unless that is honestly the game you are trying to play.

Although my own background and success would probably inspire people "that look like me", alongside the general distribution of wealth and status seekers

> Don't masquerade your pride of being the front person of your company as 'progress' that society let you get that far just to inspire 4 year olds, unless that is honestly the game you are trying to play.

What's the meaning of this? That a person should avoid unnecessary 'progress' PR?

Sadly, this often takes money because powerful people tend to be in expensive areas.

An alternative is to find the lean rising power and make yourself valuable to them.

> Sadly, this often takes money because powerful people tend to be in expensive areas.

Then just be honest about your lack of chances and stop preaching that ill-positioned people have a chance at all. (Not literally 'you', just the industry and society)

There is an even distribution of entrepreneurship across all levels of society, the survivorship bias leans toward the already wealthy and well-connected because they get to retry. Other people have to earn their initial capital for 10+ years, try once, earn again for the next 10+ years and get caught up with supporting some other life changing situation.