In my small company we had to switch about 5 years ago to only hiring folks with lots of experience …

i love an apprenticeship model, i think most people would learn better and become competent at whatever position much quicker than straight book learning, for practically every job. however, where you say: " My [...] opinion is just the opposite [...] where you're not paid a bunch ", are you saying the opposite of a living wage? how would you expect someone to, well, live during their apprenticeship? someone starving and worried about getting evicted or similar is not in a great head space to learn effectively.

Well, you're both right, sort of. Most people aren't making SV-style money out of college; they really should be paid more. But the ones that are making those types of salaries, should absolutely be paid less. So should their seniors. So should their managers, and their C-suite. And everyone else - particularly in "low skill" positions - should be making more. I listen to the details of the lifestyles of high-earning young people - international trips, 3- and 4-figure tech purchases on a whim, $60k cars, a house - and compare that to the young people I worked with in (sales-oriented) retail: working multiple jobs to make rent; paying off bare-survival-related debt; in one case, our manager having to gift a top performer a (beater) car because she simply could not have afforded one otherwise, just so that she could leave work and get home in a reasonable amount of time (she was never late…