We always pay interns (always)

There was some noise on twitter about unpaid internships last week — to date, not a single person has *ever* worked for Sanctuary for free, so I wanted to write a quick note:

By offering an unpaid internship, you’re filtering & homogenizing for people who are in the privileged position of being able to work for free (aka kids with rich parents).

That’s not a good thing for your business (or industry) — it boxes out the majority sector of the population, and the diversity of ideas that they bring.

Hiring interns is not charity — they serve an economic purpose. You wouldn’t bring them on if they weren’t helping in some capacity.

If you can’t afford to pay them at least $500+ a week (fulltime), you don’t need interns.