Reminds me of Bell Labs. The director was once interviewed asking "how do you manage a bunch of geniuses" and he answered "you don't." (I'm sure this wasn't the exact phrasing but the sentiment is right)
Edit: Appears my memory is better than I thought[0]
I think the point here is that there is nothing to back up the dubious claim that MS recruits were inferior; your observation essentially reinforces that point.
I've heard the claim so many times, and pay (that I was good enough to achieve) at MS was lower than salaries for FB and Google posted on Blind, but who knows how real those were. I never bothered to look into it myself. Honestly I was just kind of a Microsoft fanboy at the time, haha.
A lot of these companies self select for obedient, conflict avoiding employees that agree with everything that comes from above. That's great if you are executing a fixed plan. But, you need a certain amount of status quo challenging types to actually innovate when the plan needs to change. Google and Meta are clearly struggling on that front. They've hired the ability to innovate out of their leadership and company.
Just my impression; but kind of backed up by what's (not) happening at Google.
MS somehow found a way back from that to where they were doing different enough things to grow their business quite dramatically under Nadella. Google is in need of a similar change.
Having the best people and knowing how to use them effectively are two very, very different things