Any of us with caring responsibilities, who can barely attend conferences sadly know this.
So conferences create better cited people, who then go on to get even more invites as a result. Mostly privileged men, with someone at home doing the childcare.
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01604-x

In addition, as their citations grow, their funding grows, their groups grow, their prizes accumulate, their alumni get academic jobs, and their ideas spread, becoming dominant in the scientific discourse.

Essentially, those people become the 'McDonalds' & 'Coca Cola's of the academic world.
However, although there is no doubt mega-corps create great products at scale, it's important to remember that a tiny independent coffee shop can produce something of the very highest quality.

We need to make sure that at conferences, within funding mechanisms, and across science journalism, we allow space for ideas that come from different places than 'the usual', enabling a wider array of diverse scientific voices to be heard, highlighting their contributions.