You Can’t Just Buy Them

I can hear the objection, because it’s the obvious one and I’ve made it myself: just hire seniors when you need them. Let the other guy train them. Poach the finished product. It’s cheaper, it’s faster, and it has worked for the entire history of this industry. Right? WRONG.

Here’s why that breaks: everyone is about to have that exact same idea at the exact same time. Every company that quietly decides juniors are too expensive is also quietly deciding to buy its seniors on the open market later.

One might think that companies really ought to be smarter. But the histories of whaling and fishing shows that profit-oriented industries are absolutely capable of completely and irreversibly wrecking their own economical foundations for a few years with a bit of extra profit.