Maybe, but if I think of the five or so people I know who are truly brilliant two work at Google, a couple work in finance and one is getting a PhD in math. A lot of people would consider at least two of those fields not worthwhile for such talented people.

But to be honest, the whole "best minds" thing is sort of silly because the actual hard problems that we have to deal with aren't hard because smart people aren't working on them. They're hard because they touch on human issues and have a lot of tradeoffs and no solution that is satisfying to everyone.