In order to implement Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, first you need intelligence. You will not find this kind of brain power among a bunch of high school graduates and Linux scripters/hackers. When you talk to people and they voice no concern about their job or the future of the company, that is a red flag because you know they're here just to earn a pay check. The one that disagree and beg the questions often got sidelined because of politics.
You can only win by hiring smart people to design smart products. In the long run, you need people who think outside of the box - smart and educated achievers, people with track records to prove it. There are too many mediocre engineers with the common approach to any problem no matter how complicated: "OK, you have problem to solve, let me write a Linux script to for it".
