When I worked at certain top software companies the people I worked with were often so talented and, most importantly, cared enough about the work they did that

When I worked at certain top software companies the people I worked with were often so talented and, most importantly, cared enough about the work they did that we could have produced great software with any form of process. In fact, we often started with "base Scrum" and about 6 or so months in we would have a completely modified version of Scrum. My point is, I don't think Valve is hiring average or below average people. Their process works for them because great people make any process work. Or maybe great people just make their own process, which is the most Agile-y of Agile things you can possibly do.