I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

Post by Pyxl101 » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 3:41 AM UTC

treasuresque wrote: post #286

DO NOT WORK WITH HIM. Can't believe he made it to HN!! He somehow became a thing but I can't stress out enough how much money he had cost me while providing either no service -even declined to work on my first case- or really shitty service, where i ended up writing all docs myself. He does not think out of the box at all or provides any value bigger than digging into Google. He didn't have any plan B or even replied…

Post by bonobo3000 » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 3:56 AM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #135

billconan wrote: post #19

What are the options for an h1b who wants to start up? we can't lose our jobs to maintain the h1b status. will yc care that we are not working on the idea fulltime by the time of applying to yc? (will certainly quit the job if accepted to yc.) what are the common attitudes of companies, like google, microsoft, apple, facebook, toward employee moonlighting?

With regard to maintaining legal status: If you get a part-time job H1B petition approved, you can use it to maintain your status. With an H1B visa you just need one job (at all times) to maintain legal status. Part-time H1B petitions allows the employer to specify a range of hours, like 10-20. If you find an employer willing to hire you for 10-20 hours, and file the H1B petition (which costs including attorney fees,…

Post by klean92 » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 4:05 AM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #243

omarchowdhury wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How quick is the premium processing?

They guarantee they'll issue a decision in 14 days, or refund the $1,225 premium processing fee.

Post by rb2k_ » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 5:03 AM UTC

tinbad wrote: post #160

Not a question but wanted to point out the L1 visa that is often overlooked by foreign startup founders. It allows for founders/workers of foreign companies to be transferred to a US subsidiary that is majority owned by the foreign entity. I found it a fairly simple and straightforward process that got me from nothing to L1 to Green Card in about 13 months (although with help of immigration lawyer of course). The mai…

Post by siberianbear » Sat, Dec 12, 2015, 6:01 AM UTC

beambot wrote: post #290

angelbob wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, an employer specifically does not own your side work assuming you don't use any of their physical assets, protected know-how or paid-for time. In other words, if it's genuinely side work. There's a specific statute to that effect, and they're required to inform you of same. (I'm not a lawyer either, but I've worked in CA for a long time.)

You're talking about California Labor Code 2870: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&gr... The gist: Has to be your own time, own resources, and not related to your company's current or anticipated business. It's that last clause that's the kicker. For some companies, it's easy to prove -- e.g. wood working is probably unrelated to Twitter's businesses. For other companies that literally work on…