Thus excluding everyone with a shred of self interest or any experience with drinking the corporate mystery beverage.
Clever, but you won't end up with "the best."
Somehow, I don't think that "the best" would forego thousands of available opportunities to work for a company that won't even consider hiring someone who might be able to compare their offer to someone else's.
A lot of people find it within their own self interest to work somewhere that is careful about hiring. Personally, I find that job satisfaction depends a lot on who my colleagues are.
And I don't think this hiring practice precludes employees from evaluating other offers - if a company goes through this process and decides to extend an offer (and they're growing fast), they're likely to be willing to hold the offer for you while you evaluate other opportunities.
Clever, but you won't end up with "the best."
Somehow, I don't think that "the best" would forego thousands of available opportunities to work for a company that won't even consider hiring someone who might be able to compare their offer to someone else's.