Many smart people spend their lives at the bottom layer. To be clear, it's not that they don't work hard or aren't smart, but they rely too much on "intelligence" as their capital. This society has never paid for comprehension ability or learning speed; it only pays for results that can be amplified. If you are just quick to respond, understand the rules, and execute well, but lack pricing power, irreplaceability, or long-term accumulated assets, then no matter how many platforms you switch to, you are essentially just a "high-end tool." The real difference has never been IQ, but whether you use your intelligence to build your own structure, rather than simply embedding yourself into someone else's structure.