[908B64B197]

He's right and wrong at the same time.

If I pay above market rate I'll attract better devs for sure, and the caliber of folks in my hiring pipeline will get better. It's not obvious at all unless you know where to look. College is the prime example of that. If you pay better you'll have more new grads applying and they will prioritize you over other offers (unless you are an exceptionally prestigious employer). But even then, you'll never talk to the student who interned twice at FAANG and got a firm offer a year before graduation. You can get that guy only if you are willing to employ him at FAANG salary for two summers.

Employing these guys won't make my existing hires any better than they are in the immediate future.

However

Better hires leads to better teams. I find that certain developers have a multiplicative effect that applies to other devs. They mentor, document, review and help everyone grow. That might actually slow them (taking half a day to explain high level architecture to a lowly junior coder) until you realize the junior coder is now capable of answering questions from his teammates.