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When Scale AI cofounder and CEO Alexandr Wang announced MEI\u2014meritocracy, excellence, and intelligence<\/a>\u2014as the company\u2019s new hiring and people policy, reactions in the tech industry<\/a> swiftly fell into two predictable camps. On one side were tech leaders, mostly men, some very prominent including Tesla<\/a> CEO Elon Musk, who welcomed and applauded the move<\/a>. On the other side, a collective eye roll from a more progressive crowd, who saw this as another incarnation of the growing war on DEI<\/a> (diversity, equity, and inclusion).\u00a0<\/p>\n It mattered little that Wang clarified that \u201cthe belief that meritocracy somehow conflicts with diversity\u201d is \u201cmistaken.\u201d The fact that he directly replaced the acronym DEI with MEI ironically demonstrates the one thing these two sides agree on\u2014that\u00a0the two concepts are fundamentally in opposition with one another<\/a>. Two ends of a spectrum, one that closely maps to American politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, equity and meritocracy are not two ends of a spectrum. The opposite of meritocracy is not equity\u2014it\u2019s nepotism. And the opposite of equity is not meritocracy, it\u2019s inequity. The ideal we should all be striving for is a meritocratic system that is free of bias, one where there is equality of opportunity for all.\u00a0<\/p>\n I have long believed that the true binary isn\u2019t between right and left, it\u2019s between the center and the extremes. Unfortunately, it\u2019s the extremes that dominate the conversation, and adding a second dimension to the conversation is too complicated to fit into today\u2019s highly polarized discourse, particularly when it plays out online. Subtlety doesn\u2019t shine on TikTok. Thoughtfulness doesn\u2019t go viral on X<\/a>. Nuance doesn\u2019t make for catchy headlines.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll give you a litmus test for your beliefs: I am a female, a Latina, and an immigrant. I am a graduate of Harvard Business School, where I attended on a full scholarship. I am a venture capitalist running my own\u00a0fund<\/a>, and the founder and leader of the\u00a0largest community of VC-backed female founders<\/a>\u00a0in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n Think fast: Did I achieve any of this because of, or in spite of, those pieces of my identity that make me stand out from most VCs?<\/p>\n However you answer likely has little to do with me, and a lot to do with how you see the world. I\u2019ve been told that I\u2019d never raise a VC fund because I\u2019m a woman. I\u2019ve also been told that raising my fund was\u00a0easier<\/em>\u00a0because I\u2019m a woman. Meanwhile, my male counterparts, who outnumber women in the space about nine times over, raise funds an order of magnitude larger in less than half the time I did. I\u2019ve also been told it was easier for me to get into HBS because I\u2019m from Costa Rica. I have spent many years counting how many Costa Ricans I know applied to HBS that same year, just to prove to myself that fewer than 7% of us\u2014the overall HBS admission rate\u2014got in. I hate the idea of being admitted as part of some quota, and not because\u2014among other things\u2014I aced the GMAT.\u00a0<\/p>\n Most importantly, either answer\u2014because of, or in spite of\u2014has the same consequence: It erases me from my own accomplishments. It detracts from my actual merit, not to mention the years of sacrifice, mountains of rejection, bouncing back from failure, refusing to take no for an answer, and yes, even the luck. None of these things matter if, when you see me, all you see are the boxes I check. It\u2019s like you don\u2019t see me at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n This erasure is in large part why many who are underrepresented in the most competitive professions, but who are otherwise stereotypical type A overachievers, tend to walk around with a massive chip on their shoulders. Because we\u2019re damned if we do, and damned if we don\u2019t. Contrary to what you may think, most of us are staunchly pro-meritocracy, even as we experience first-hand that most systems claiming to be meritocratic are highly inequitable in practice. They are rife with bias that affects people like us.\u00a0<\/p>\n Consider a\u00a0Harvard study<\/a>\u00a0that found that when a man and a woman deliver the exact same pitch to investors, it results in higher investment for the man. Is this because men are better? Unlikely. It\u2019s because investors bring bias\u2014good and bad\u2014into their investment decisions. Now compare this to findings\u2014from BCG<\/a> and from First Round Capital<\/a>, for example\u2014that show that female founders deliver better results than all-male teams. Is it because women are better? Also unlikely. I think it\u2019s because we\u2019re equally talented but have a much harder time raising capital. The result is a self-selection of relentless entrepreneurs that rises to the top, forced to create much stronger companies from the get-go. Iron is forged in fire.<\/p>\n All this being said, let\u2019s all face the ugly truth:\u00a0Data doesn\u2019t matter<\/a>! People on both sides will ignore whatever data I cite, unless it reinforces what they already believe to be true. If data mattered, all teams, boards, and levels of leadership would be more diverse. Opportunity would be equally distributed. Schools wouldn\u2019t drop standardized testing. Performative DEI initiatives that don\u2019t actually work would stop. Or they wouldn\u2019t be needed in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n Early in my career, after studying under him at HBS, I took a job in\u00a0Clayton Christensen\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0strategy consulting firm, helping clients identify and leverage his theories of disruptive innovation. For the uninitiated, and the 95% of you who routinely get this wrong, disruptive innovation is a powerful economic phenomenon whereby upstarts achieve outsize success by targeting market segments that are overlooked by, or unattractive to, established incumbents. In disruptive theory, these \u201cunattractive\u201d market segments are ignored because they\u2019re thought to be less profitable and less desirable, all the way up until the disruptor shows they\u2019re not.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is why in my own investing activities I\u2019ve started thinking of underrepresented founders\u2014women, minorities, immigrants\u2014as having outsized disruptive potential. Disruptive theory teaches us that there is huge power in being unseen. Because when you\u2019re unseen, then they\u2019ll never see you coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n A chip on the shoulder is a powerful motivating tool\u2014however you feel about fairness. A recent\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0of 845 unicorns\u2014startups that reach a $1 billion valuation\u2014and 2,018 unicorn founders found a \u201cchip on your shoulder\u201d to be one of three dominant factors in the \u201cDNA\u201d of a unicorn founder. It also found that 70% of unicorn founders were immigrants, women, or people of color. Compare this to the proportion of VC-backed companies that are founded by immigrants (20%), women (4%), and BIPOC (around 2%).\u00a0Given the disparate sources of data, I\u2019ll refrain from turning these statistics into a mathematical likelihood. But you get the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n And if you don\u2019t? That\u2019s just more opportunity for me.<\/p>\n More commentary\u00a0published by\u00a0Fortune<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of\u00a0<\/em>Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nRecommended Newsletter:<\/strong> CEO Daily provides key context for the news leaders need to know from across the world of business. Every weekday morning, more than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily for insights about\u2013and from inside\u2013the C-suite. Subscribe Now<\/a>.<\/div>\n