Another ivory tower joins those built by Spolsky and Yegge. A nice theory on hiring that is completely impractical, bordering on the surreal.

1) You wouldn't recognize a Dennis-Ritchie- or Claude-Shannon-to-be if they would spit you in the face, because at the point in their lives where they would consider to work for you (if there ever was such a point), their achievements would not stand out nearly as much. Robin Milner died saturday and I just learned he didn't even have a Ph.D. Pretending you'd be even remotely capable of recognizing

2) What gives you the idea that people with such potential would apply at RethinkDB? You are describing a group of maybe a thousand people worldwide. Many have academic ambitions; others are interested in completely different subjects. There are more than a thousand companies looking for these people. If you'd manage to hire one, you'd be lucky.

3) Even if you were able to recognize the ability for such achievements and get them to apply, it is doubtful they would able to achieve those peaks in your corporate environment. Claude Shannon didn't have to satisfy any customers. He could spend years developing a theory, whose practical value was only clear after it was sufficiently developed.

4) A corollary of 2): the people you've hired so far are not the kind of people you describe.

It would be nice if, just for once, someone would try to describe the people they actually hire, instead of pretending they only hire potential Field medalists, Nobel laureates and other people of such fame that all of their actual developers know them.

  [..] I am often unable to solve complex problems during 
  the interview because of the nervous pressure. But I don’t
  want to hire people as good as me, I want to hire people
  much better than me.

5) People that botch their interview because they are nervous can't be better than you? Perhaps nervousness/self-doubt go hand-in-hand with the ability to be better than you and you're throwing out the babies with the bathwater. Especially considering that someone passionate about working with you would be prone to nervousness.

6) And finally, about that Spolsky quote: I'm convinced he put it there to make sure no one else would hire the ones he would like to hire. If you don't have any doubts about a candidate, then you haven't pried enough to expose their weaknesses. That, or they are too glib. You should have doubts about every single one of your interviewees.

PS: this article, as well as the ones by Spolsky and Yegge referenced in the article, contain sound advice. However, all three of them go overboard at some point, which inspired the above. This comment might be considered as tearing apart a specific point, while ignoring the larger whole. This is not my intention: the article is worth reading.