Paul Graham boiled it down to an analogy with food and explanation of the economies of scale:

An obstacle downstream propagates upstream. If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. And vice versa: when you can do whatever you want, you have more ideas about what to do. So working for yourself makes your brain more powerful in the same way a low-restriction exhaust system makes an engine more powerful.

Mediocre hires hurt you twice: they get less done, but they also make you big, because you need more of them to solve a given problem.

In other words, work at a smaller company or your own start up. To read the whole blog post, click here.

--

His post about "How To Do Philosophy" is funny, as it reminds me of some people who fit the stereotype.