Experienced sought after talent wants to work from anywhere while the young fresh talent wants to work in person, unfortunately they won’t get the mentorship needed as the experienced folks are all remote
I don't think the young want to sit in open offices any more than the old. The extraverts perhaps, but when I was young I hated working in an office almost as much as I hated the train/bus I needed to ride to get there.
how does mentorship require physical presence?
Agreed. I've been mentored into the Elixir world while 100% remote. I paired all the time at first, and then I posted questions in my companies "help me".
I've mentored another co-worker (JS dev) through the wild world of rails and DBA.
Heaps of universities have transitioned to online classes, so we can't say it's not possible, or even hard.
I guess this all problem is almost as complex as people.