It’s not as easy as A and B and C people (or any other labels).
I’ve professionally led a team doing physical labor, and currently a team of teams doing intellectual labor (software development) and several between. They have been excellent, productive and profitable as well as respectful, ethical and honorable.
The reasons behind their success are complicated but always start on the same foundation: respect. Genuine, difficult to come by, and more difficult to maintain, respect. For the customer. For the user. For each other. For other departments. For the community. For the competition.
From there builds trust, and from trust comes ambition and the ability to focus on the purpose of the job (yes, it’s a job in most cases, not a mission or vision).
This is what I see some growth CEOs miss. They lack respect for people outside the “right” mold and don’t hire (or keep) them. Then to their surprise, their teams become dysfunctional.
Many tired anecdotes teach us about this (too many chefs, etc.) yet the same mistake is made with relentless repetition.
An A player will still make hiring mistakes but they have the skills/ability/aura/whatever to convince other A players to come work with them.
Many A players won't want to work for/with a B or C player because they won't see this as a good opportunity.
Not sure if they actually meant that B players can't hire B players but maybe. This sort of framing is pretty high level though.