The first job I had there was a probationary period - it was good and bad. It was good because you knew everybody there was extremely talented and you could rely on your coworkers. There was a bit of an understanding about the cut throat nature of the place though, and obviously that's not for everyone. But at the end of the day, when it came time to just get shit done, there was never any problem.

I can't name that place without doxing myself, but it sounds like Netflix has a similar culture. Some people love it. Some people hate it. But I don't think many people would say they have an issue with employing less-than-stellar employees.

Of course this is only "solving" (it's certainly not perfect) the problem of hiring for engineers, which most of us are on HN (at least I assume, but certainly more engineers than engineering managers). It does nothing to address the issue of hiring bad managers. I have no solution for that, other than to make sure the first manager is excellent. A players hire A players because they want to do the best work they can, and will go out of their way to hire people better than themselves. B players hire C players because they just want to make themselves look good. Once you have a bad manager, the assumption is everyone beneath him will be as bad or worse (obviously there are exceptions).