I feel like this hits the nail on the head. They aren't looking for smart, motivated people who will work well on the team. They think they are, and that's what they say they are doing, but large companies have a hard time really doing that. There are so many other motivating factors and interests in the interviewers, the committees, the corporate structure, etc. If you are running your own company and building the product and you know you are going to work with a person you are interviewing, you can select, consciously and unconsciously, for all kinds of things that are important to you as an individual and you are free to pick the person you think has the "smarts you want", which might be technical, personal, emotional, etc. And which might compliment your own skills. But there are all sorts of strengths, and you can be biased enough to select for the ones that work with/for you. in a massive company, you get a watered down set of some sort of skills selected for by a competing line of somewhat disinterested (which can be a bad thing) people trying to meet some "objective" one-size-fits-all criteria.