[babelfish]

Only hire A players. B players hire C players, and C players sink the ship

[alphazard]

Yes this is the proverb. I often hear it quoted as A hires B hires C, as a remark on organizational decay. But the original (and the way you phrased it) is a statement about what kind of person each wants to hire out of their own self interest. That's the more insightful version IMO.