[roenxi]

> Fascinating.. I wonder if their creating a high barrier of entry actually backfired and caused them to hire less competent people?

Depends on the exact question; degrees trigger Berkson's Paradox [0]. If you do a survey of company workers doing [task X] then there will be a negative correlation between formal qualifications and competence. That is because all the the uncertified individuals doing the task will have gotten in by being very, very good at it but the statistical outcome is that the certification becomes a negative competence signal.

Such as this anecdote, in fact.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox could be considered a variant of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox