To be honest I think a lot of company representatives (CTO, hiring managers...) don't acurately understand or voice what they really need.

A lot of them say to want 'A players', but the organization is not ready to value people willing to rock the boat, deeply challenge assumptions or willing to put higher people under scrutiny over their decisions.

Same with hiring super smart people but not wanting to commit to risky bets or to fail often.

In these companies the most demanding people come and go, and more lenient people ('B players' ?) stay to work within the system or try to make things better more incrementally.