I agree with you. If a privately owned company wants to pay over-market for certain jobs, that's their lookout.

As an old fart, and I've been in quite a different industry than the subject of the story, what has made a company successful is building a really desirable product in a growing market. People do a lot of handwaving about company cultures, quality of life, renumeration, but I think that building the right stuff will overwhelm practically any internal problems.