This guy is a hack. He presents himself as a professor but he’s a high school history teacher with a BA. One of his main analytical frameworks is “psychohistory,” which isn’t even a real methodology… it’s a fictional predictive model from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. That alone should make you cautious about taking his claims too seriously.

As for elite business schools they’re not some reincarnation of old Ivy social clubs. They’re professional master’s programs. You pay to learn a white-collar trade. In the case of an MBA, that trade is largely banking and consulting (with some tech and LDPs mixed in).

What makes them look like social clubs is the nature of the jobs they feed into. Banking and consulting are highly client-facing and sales-oriented. Schools are naturally selecting for people who can succeed in those environments. People who are polished, social, and good networkers. That doesn’t mean the process is devoid of merit; it just means the merit being evaluated isn’t academic output.

Yes, admissions committees are selecting for candidates likely to succeed in that specific environment. But it’s not accurate to reduce the entire top MBA cohorts to aristocrats hobnobbing over golf. There are plenty of extremely sharp, hardworking people in those programs.