Do you know people who manage to get paid by Who They Are,

[astral]

not What They Do?

and get away with it?

[haele]

1. Yes, but the ones I knew usually came from wealth or a famous family to begin with -

The rest I've heard of managed to gain some sort of serious celebrity - which coincidentally, usually came from some sort of connection to wealth or a famous family.

It's basically a matter of being born on third base, you don't have to work very hard to make that home run...

Haele

[Lionel Mandrake]

2. There's a building full of them at Stanford.

It's called the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.

"The Hoover Institution is influential in the American conservative and libertarian movements. The Institution has long been a place of scholarship for high-profile conservatives with government experience. A number of Hoover Institution fellows had connections to or held positions in the Bush administration and other Republican administrations. High-profile conservatives Edwin Meese, Condoleezza Rice, George Shultz, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Amy Zegart are all Hoover Institution fellows. Retired U.S. Army General John P. Abizaid, former commander of the U.S. Central Command, was recently named the Institution's first Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow."

Read more (if you have a strong stomach):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Institution