Judging the smartness of the company by its financial performance is a weak indicator in my opinion. It might be smart to invest money in a company which is doing well financially but it might not be smart to work for one.

I would define smartness by the way the company treats it’s employees and customers and on the level of greed of the Chief Officers. Look at Enron – at one point they could have been judged smart based on their financial performance…

I think (based on the news only - because I did not work for them) Google might be one of the smartest companies out there.

From what I have seen the more money the company has the more stupid it is. Also the stupidity comes with the territory (type of business - I think banks and insurance companies are among the most stupid) and very often size (the bigger you get the more politics go on and how brilliant the politicians are … we all know…)

I worked for a company at one point in my life where most of the time was spent on kissing up and dividing influences instead of getting the job done that I think if that company fired 50% of it’s IT staff the rest of the company would not notice the difference in IT performance.