The Matthew Effect
them that's got shall get — advantage compounds whether you earned it or not
Grounded in the research on Wikipedia: Matthew effect; Robert K. Merton, "The Matthew Effect in Science" (Science, 1968)
[ ] what it actually is
The Matthew effect is when a head start snowballs: advantage breeds more advantage, disadvantage breeds more disadvantage. Named off the Bible line "to everyone who has, more will be given." Whoever's already ahead gets the next opportunity by default — not because they're better, but because they're already visible, already trusted, already in the room. Small early gaps don't stay small. They compound into gaps you can't out-grind.
[ ] the real science
Sociologist Robert Merton coined it in 1968 studying who gets credit in science: a famous name on a paper hoovers up the citations a no-name co-author actually earned. His collaborator Harriet Zuckerman did the Nobel-laureate interviews behind it. Later mapped onto reading by Keith Stanovich (1986) — kids who read early read more, so the gap widens yearly. It's the human version of preferential attachment: nodes that already have links get the new ones.