The article effectively uses 'popular' as a pejorative but doesn't really explore is the extent to which the 'popular kids' have achieved power through merit. If someone is popular because they are a good manager, with good ideas, able to listen and adopt better ideas from talented team members, then I have no problem with this form of hierarchy - it's a meritocracy.

I think the same way about this. But life is not fair. You see systems and you exploit them. If you gain fame by merit when interacting with one of those systems, that's nice. But not all systems work like that.