Large Company Dilemma

Once your tech company reaches a certain size, it has a dilemma on its hands. Usually, the problem is that it cannot increase its profitability without taking on more people. However, the people available to take on are not the same calibur as the people already on board. Therefore, the company can either refuse to take on additional hands and stagnate or take on average employees and eventually capsize. There appears to be no other outcome. The difficulty lies in taking average employees and making them great, when I'm not sure that is possible. Like turning lead into gold, it is just not within our abilities, today. Of the two options, capsizing seems to lead to the most profit and the capsizing doesn't necessarily mean the downfall of the business. Instead, it could just mean massive layoffs followed by restructuring as was the case with IBM and Apple. However, it seems to me that there should be a way to fill the traditional product units with the new mediocre guys, because their profit has been extracted and then spin off a new company with the masterminds, letting them focus on creating "The Next Big Thing." Just a thought...