The Real Threat of Elitism for Founders

I’m deeply suspicious of elites.

When I say “elite,” I’m not talking about top performers (I have enormous respect for people who create, build, solve, and lead with excellence). I’m talking about the self-appointed class that gets authority not from what they build, but from where they came from. For elites, success comes from pedigree, social status, and appearances. And in today's world, they dominate our institutions, steer our conversations, and way too often, shape our future.

I touched on this in my book Work 9.0, but it’s time to dive in deeper.

The problem is we’ve started confusing excellence with elitism. And that confusion has a cost.

Elitism protects people from consequences. It weakens feedback. It turns culture into something to showcase, not something to help us align and grow. But as founders, we live in the real world, where results matter, clarity is nonnegotiable, and Work doesn’t happen without accountability.

So let’s talk about why this tension between true excellence and elitism is so important, and what it means for those of us committed to building something that lasts.

Experts vs. Elites: Why the Difference Matters

There’s a real and important distinction between experts and elites, and it’s one we need to hold onto.

Experts earn trust by getting things right. They know their domain, they’ve done the work, and they speak with clarity because they’ve tested their thinking. They welcome pushback. They grow through feedback. Their authority comes from real contribution.

Elites, on the other hand, have influence that comes from who they know, where they went to school, how loyal they are. It’s about pedigree and positioning, not depth or insight.

In a healthy system, the two groups overlap, and the best experts naturally rise into leadership. But we’re not in that world right now. In too many institutions — media, academia, law, tech, finance — that overlap is shrinking. People who know what they’re doing are getting pushed aside by those who didn’t really earn the position they’re in.

And the danger isn’t just who ends up with influence. It’s how we decide who deserves it in the first place.

When Status Gets in the Way of Solving Real Problems

The issue isn’t that elites exist. It’s what they’ve started to do with their influence.

Too often, they promote beliefs that sound virtuous but don’t stand up in the real world. These ideas aren’t grounded in data or tested by experience. They’re what many call “luxury beliefs” — positions that cost nothing to hold when you’re at the top but create real consequences for everyone else.

Think about the DEI mandates that reduce people to checkboxes. Or lockdowns crafted by those working comfortably from vacation homes. Or foreign policy pushed by people whose families will never bear the cost of the conflicts they help create.

These aren’t serious attempts to make things better. They’re ways of preserving status and getting recognition.

Even well-intentioned founders can find themselves slipping into elite patterns without realizing it. They start hiring based on credentials instead of character and contribution. They obsess over what looks good rather than what actually improves the Work. They curate culture as content for recruiting, not as a system of shared agreements.

But if you’re building a company, you can’t operate that way. You need ideas and solutions that actually work, not ones that just sound good in a room full of your peers.

Why Elitism Undermines Founders

Founders live in the world of consequences.

Hire the wrong person, you feel it. Break a promise, you lose trust. Ignore feedback, systems start to break down. That’s why elitism is a threat to the way real companies are built. It pulls us away from what actually works and replaces it with what looks good.

Elitism cuts off the feedback loops that make real progress possible. It shields people from reality. It replaces learning with image control. And it confuses appearance with results. A system can look like it’s working — from a distance, in a slide deck — when in reality, it’s falling apart.

Culture takes the biggest hit with elitism. In a healthy company, culture is built on shared agreements: how we collaborate, how we treat each other, how we follow through. But elitism turns culture into a show. Something to be displayed, not lived. Something used to prove something to people on the outside, not to build trust.

As I wrote in Work 9.0, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” And in elite institutions, culture isn’t built. It’s managed, curated for appearances — not reinforced through shared experience. And the moment culture becomes a costume, it loses its power to align, guide, and sustain your organization.

That’s why the right tools matter. You need systems that reinforce accountability, enable clarity, and keep feedback loops strong. That’s what we’ve built Ninety to do. Whether it’s tracking agreements, documenting roles, or running real-time meetings, our platform supports the Work — the real, day-in and day-out effort it takes to build a great company.

How Founders Win

This isn’t about being contrarian. It’s about rejecting the hollowness surrounding elitism. It’s about showing there’s a better way to lead — an approach built on competence, follow-through, and accountability.

As founders, we don’t win with better slogans or more appearances. We win by building resilient, purpose-driven organizations that actually make an impact. We win through shared agreements, principled leadership, and systems built on performance, not credentials.

So keep building with intention.

Because it won’t be status that moves you forward. It’ll be the Work — real, consistent, and earned.