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Comment by PolicyPhantom | Hacker News Reader

Generative AI may automate some entry-level tasks, but young professionals are not just “replaceable labor.” They bring growth potential, adaptation, and social learning. Without frameworks to manage AI’s role, we risk undermining the very training grounds that prepare the next generation of experts.

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That's a lot to invest in someone at a large comparative loss, in a world where employees don't last more than a couple years before job hopping.

I agree that high turnover is a real constraint. That’s why the answer isn’t “10 years of apprenticeship” but designing scaffolds that combine learning with contribution in a shorter timeframe. Things like short rotations, micro-credentials, or mentorship stipends let juniors add value while they’re still on the job. Even if they leave after a few years, the investment isn’t wasted — both sides still capture meaningful returns.

Maybe this is unpopular, but what if 5/10-year long contracts started getting traction?

I guess you'd need to trust the company, which is hard to come by.

Interesting thought — long-term contracts could indeed align incentives for growth and stability. The challenge, as you note, is trust: few employees or companies are willing to bind themselves for 5–10 years in today’s fluid market.

That’s why governance frameworks (whether in labor or in AI) matter: they provide external guarantees of trust where bilateral promises may not hold.

How do they bring more “growth potential” than a mid level developer with 3-5 years of experience? The average tenure of a developer is 2-3 years. I expect that to increase going forward slightly as the job market continues to suck. But why would I care about the growth of the company when my promotion criteria is based on delivering quarterly or yearly goals? Those goals can much more easily be met by paying slightly more for a mid level developer who doesn’t do negative work both directly and by taking time away from the existing team?

You’re absolutely right that mid-level hires buy immediate productivity. But “growth potential” isn’t just romanticism — it’s an investable trajectory. With the right project design, feedback loops, and domain exposure, juniors can grow into “multipliers” — people who combine technical skills with adaptability or domain expertise. That’s a kind of return you rarely get from simply adding another mid-level hire. In practice, resilient organizations balance both: mid-levels for immediate throughput, and juniors for long-term strength.

Of course I meant 3-5 years of experience not 35 years of experience. :) I just edited it.

You’re not “investing” in anyone if their tenure is going to be 2-3 years with the first one doing negative work.

And why should juniors stay? Because of salary compression and inversion, where HR determines raises. But the free market determines comp for new employees, it makes sense for them to jump ship to make more money. I’ve seen this at every company I’ve worked for from startups, to mid size companies, to boring old enterprise companies to BigTech.

Where even managers can’t fight for employees to get raises at market rates. But they can get an open req to pay at market rates when that employee leaves.

And who is incentivize to care about “the organization” when line level managers and even directors or incentivized to care about the next quarter to the next year?

I hear you — salary compression and inversion, along with short tenure, are very real structural problems. It’s understandable that managers and even directors end up focused only on the next quarter.

My broader point is that when these short-term incentives dominate, organizations (and societies) lose the capacity to build for the long term. That’s exactly why governance frameworks matter: they help create safeguards against purely short-term dynamics — whether in HR policy or in AI policy.

Nobody is really behaving in a manner that is tied with long term thinking anymore.

Everything is short term. Just look at the equity market - its all pricing not intrinsic valuation, based on forecasting cash flows out in perpetuity.

Folks need to wake up to this realisation and just accept it as a flaw of the system we operate in. Until the system is revised and redesigned, its not gonna change.

True — short-termism is deeply baked into the current system, from equity markets to corporate incentives.

But that’s exactly why we need governance frameworks: markets alone won’t correct for long-term stability. Well-designed institutions can act as the counterweight — whether in finance or in AI policy.

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