I agree with you and generally this is a great way for a startup to save money as well because new grads are cheap.
The problem that you'll then have though, is that when you encounter a tough technical challenge, you won't have the benefit of having someone on your team who has seen it before.
So there must be some golden ratio. A solid emphasis on college recruiting to serve immediate needs, with a focus on building out a technical knowledge base accompanied by many years of experience.
"I agree with you and generally this is a great way for a startup to save money as well because new grads are cheap."
I'd argue the opposite case — if it's true that a good programmer is at least 5-10x more productive than an average programmer[1], you'd actually save money by paying the experienced programmer significantly more when compared to hiring a team of beginning or average programmers.
There's also costs that scale with headcount but not experience. For instance, you've got to get computers and chairs and desks for everyone whether they're a rookie or an expert. Ditto things like healthcare. Sure, the rookies may have cubicles and slightly worse plans, but those costs aren't going to be 1/5 or 1/10 as expensive. And while the good programmers probably need less oversight than average, support personnel costs (internal IT, HR, recruitment, whatever) still scale with headcount.
The problem that you'll then have though, is that when you encounter a tough technical challenge, you won't have the benefit of having someone on your team who has seen it before.
So there must be some golden ratio. A solid emphasis on college recruiting to serve immediate needs, with a focus on building out a technical knowledge base accompanied by many years of experience.