"Hiring the smartest people" is always great right up until the "paying slightly above market rate!" part.
If you really are hiring the smartest people, what you are paying them should leave average people with their chins on the ground(1). If this is not the case, then I wish they'd quit bragging, because the smartest people aren't working there.
(1) This and/or have about the coolest place to work on the most interesting problems in the world.
There are people who volunteer to work on things like Presidential campaigns and for startups because of who they are working with rather than because of what they are being paid.
If you really are hiring the smartest people, what you are paying them should leave average people with their chins on the ground(1). If this is not the case, then I wish they'd quit bragging, because the smartest people aren't working there.
(1) This and/or have about the coolest place to work on the most interesting problems in the world.