Prestige vs Performance

I see people saying that your background matters a ton, like if you went to a target school and if you had great internships in undergrad. But once you are working shouldn’t it be all based on performance. For example someone that went to target schools and has bulge bracket experience, but in the job they are an average performer middle to upper bucket. Versus someone who has poor background non target, not great internships, but they are on top in their group close a ton of deals, who would be more sought out between the two of them I would imagine it is the one closing deals, but a lot of people talk about prestige on here so I’m interested in others thoughts.

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