The history and future of credentials

Paul Graham argues that credentials were but a step in the evolution of society .  In ancient societies family status determined the transfer of power from generation to generation.  The credential system provided a way for less powerful to gain access to higher positions.  Graham claims that the current climate of small startup companies rewards the best performing individuals, independent of degrees.

Background:

Before credentials, government positions were obtained mainly by family influence, if not outright bribery.

History suggests that, all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly. 

His hypothesis:

In a world of small companies, performance is all anyone cares about. People hiring for a startup don't care whether you've even graduated from college, let alone which one. All they care about is what you can do. Which is in fact all that should matter, even in a large organization. The reason credentials have such prestige is that for so long the large organizations in a society tended to be the most powerful. But in the US at least they don't have the monopoly on power they once did, precisely because they can't measure (and thus reward) individual performance. Why spend twenty years climbing the corporate ladder when you can get rewarded directly by the market?