Almost every economic system in history has had some impressive wins, but that doesn't mean that they are all perfectly efficient. Modern corporate capitalism isn't the worst system ever but that doesn't mean there aren't massive flaws and blindspots.

Becoming a large company CEO is highly correlated with who a person has spent time around. If it were a true meritocracy you would expect a roughly even distribution across regions and backgrounds, which is very much not the case.

If you ever work in a large corporation I can almost guarantee that you will encounter managers who are much better at networking and marketing themselves than they are at doing productive work.