Author here. I get why you parsed it the way you did. I guess what I was going for is that conventional wisdom dictates that those candidates are the good ones, and I was using that as kind of a hyperbolized thought experiment. I do NOT agree that pedigree is a good predictor of aptitude. I even did a bunch of research around this. Check out http://blog.alinelerner.com/lessons-from-a-years-worth-of-hi...