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Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

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Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#51
post #43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, educated and immigrants of means are a great addition to any economy they go to and a drain to the economies they leave. It's understandable why educated people might want to leave a country with few economic opportunities for their careers. What I'm not so clear on is what attracts educated people of means to emigrate to the US [and AU and UK] from otherwise stable mature economies? We're better off for them,…

You can make a lot more money in the U.S. From entrepreneurship, of course, but Professionals and executives get paid way more in the U.S. too.

That's true; however, the stereotype is that in a lot of places that are not the US, except for China, value other "social cohesion" characteristics of their economies over "crass" pursuit of money. If that stereotype still has merit, then it implies the ones who come here are the ones who believe in US-style economics over their homelands' --which is neither here nor there, just an observation.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#52

"These 44 companies, the study says, are collectively valued at $168 billion and create an average of roughly 760 jobs per company." Firstly, that's 33,000 jobs or about 0.0003% of the US workforce, so hardly the backbone of the economy. Secondly, the H1B program, the subject of the article, is not an immigration program but a guest worker program. Generally, H1B workers leave the country and don't go on to start com…

Very anecdotal but all my friends who got to the US on an H1B have moved on to green card and citizenship. I would imagine this is quite common as it is a "dual-intent" visa. I think it would be better for immigrants and Americans if workers got a permanent residency immediately status rather than a temporary work visa tied to a given company.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#53
post #9

It's no secret that the continuing economic dominance of the US is not due to a post-WW2 windfall or the unique capabilities of Americans, but more to the ability of the US to attract and retain the very best, and then subsequently give them unique opportunities. Few nativists are opposed to the best and the brightest (and the already-wealthy) coming to the US in very, very small numbers, but what they don't realize…

>but what they don't realize is that it's pretty much impossible to tell in advance who's going to be a winning lottery ticket.

Agreed, it's difficult to tell in advance. One way of skewing the odds in favor of the US is to just sell visas to the highest bidder.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#54
post #52

"These 44 companies, the study says, are collectively valued at $168 billion and create an average of roughly 760 jobs per company." Firstly, that's 33,000 jobs or about 0.0003% of the US workforce, so hardly the backbone of the economy. Secondly, the H1B program, the subject of the article, is not an immigration program but a guest worker program. Generally, H1B workers leave the country and don't go on to start com…

Very anecdotal but all my friends who got to the US on an H1B have moved on to green card and citizenship. I would imagine this is quite common as it is a "dual-intent" visa. I think it would be better for immigrants and Americans if workers got a permanent residency immediately status rather than a temporary work visa tied to a given company.

The largest users of H1Bs, the big outsourcing firms like Tata and Infosys, don't sponsor permanent residency. The two largest ones had something like 13,000 new H1Bs in 2013 and sponsored 7 people for permanent residency that year.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#56
post #13

I'm not a U.S. citizen, and obviously one day I hope to be one of those U.S. Billion-Dollar startup founders and I would appreciate a VISA if it would help me achieve that, but there's something shaky with the premise here. Why does the U.S. need to depend on the ~80.000 odd first order immigrants per year to generate that amount of wealth. Couldn't the U.S. somehow draw those ambitious out of its current population?…

> What if people could 'emigrate' from Detroit to California? They can, there's no restriction of movement within the US.

Ya, and it happens a lot, and yet it's not controversial at all. But allowing someone to move from Vancouver to Seattle is for some reason.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he was OPT, at least initially.

OPT doesn't last very long (18 months max I think). The standard path for students is F1->OPT->H1B->Green Card->Citizen.

It's now three years for stem https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright. Let me list down some immigrants who came here on H1B visa. 1. Jyoti Bansal - Founder of AppDynamics The guy in the above mentioned article was on H1B. 2. Kevin Systrom - Cofounder of Instagram was on H1B visa. 3. Jay Scaler - Founder of ZScaler an unicorn, was on H1B visa 4. Vinod Khosla - Founder of Sun Microsystems and well known VC was on H1B visa initially Will list down some more in some time.

In fact H1B has to work for an employer and can not founder a company(at least easily or legally), you have to earn your permanent residence first, which takes quite a few years at least.

Yup.

It's a shitty system that locks you in to working for other places for years.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>companies have tasted what mass immigration does to engineering salaries (stagnant since 2000) Do you happen to know if there were studies done to link these two?

This is basic supply and demand. Not everything needs a peer reviewed study to make a valid assumption.

So stagnant salaries have nothing to do with global and national economic factors like recessions ect.

It just purely H1B's. A little simplistic don't you think?

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