101–110 of 235 posts
> These 44 companies, the study says, are collectively valued at $168 billion and create an average of roughly 760 jobs per company in the U.S. $168B divided by 760 employees: $220M of value created per job. If there's no error in the numbers, that means that employees at these startups are tremendously underpaid, in spite of probably making above-market salaries.
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The three people you listed are not known for founding billion dollar startups. They are known as employees of Google and Microsoft (unless you meant somebody else with the same last names as Google and Microsoft CEO and Google's former VP of engineering).
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.
The H-1B visa was created in 1990. Khosla started working in the U.S. in 1980 after graduating from Stanford, and founded Sun in 1982. It seems doubtful he was ever on an H-1B.
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Not quite so sure. I was a startup cofounder (never made it to billion dollar though :), and came to the US via grad school on an F1 visa, which then morphed into an H1B, and am now in the process of getting a green card. I know this is a very common path. Regarding the class thing: my grandparents were blue collar workers who never went to high school, my parents were engineers.
IANAL, but you cannot legally work on your own startup if you are on H1B
"And of course H1B visas drive down wages"
Wasn't disappointed. Never change hacker news.
These are not the downtrodden masses. Immigrant does not mean poor. These are wealthy upper class people coming to the most logical place to create a successful technology company, because they can afford to do so. Poor people are usually stuck wherever they are. Investors in Silicon Valley care a lot about status and pedigree. A foreigner that can afford elite credentials is far more likely to get funding than a poo…
Right, but these things sometimes go a bit beyond that with 'externalities', which can be both positive and negative, and various other economic factors that come into play.
Sometimes there are 'vicious circles', but also 'virtuous circles'. More people, more talent, more expertise, more jobs, and so on.
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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.
The article is advocating for increasing H1-B caps. I wonder what does H1-B (a non-immigrant visa, which does not allow running your own business) has to do with immigrants founding billion dollar startups other than them using it to acquire cheap labor?
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This is misrepresenting the data. The majority of economists and the relevant literature agree that allowing more freedom of immigration improves the welfare of American worker. This is ignoring the huge benefits to the immigrants themselves. To appeal to what I imagine HN's ideology is, the arguments are similar to those around making the market more free--when you prevent buyers and sellers from making transactions…
You tell me the data is misrepresented, please tell me how? The data in the charts are accurate and this is from an esteemed economist. Actually read the article I linked and he discusses how the standard economics literature has completely misrepresented the impact of immigration on native workers. >Finally, Peri and Yasenov look at workers aged 16-61, and this is a particularly weird data manipulation. Among adult…
* Technology, which will happen with or without immigration.
* Globalization, which will happen with or without immigration. Make it hard for people to immigrate, and companies will eventually open branches elsewhere.
And there may be specific problems with the Borjas 2015 paper in any case: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21801#fromrss
What was thd class of the inmigrant? Where did they go to school? And were those that funded them immigrants? Then the big picture emerges.
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> If you want to expand immigration, a simpler, faster path to permanent residency is essential. Comprehensive immigration reform was supposed to do that, adopting a more streamlined points system like Canada and Australia, but of course the bill ended up covering amnesty for undocumented immigrants too and the whole thing got shot down. Unfortunately for most people an H1-B is the best path to a green card, and only…
Yes, as a Canadian working in the USA on an H1B, I am painfully aware of this fact. The point remains: Increasing the number of H1Bs will not have a great impact on the number of founders, especially not in the short term, because the vast majority of them will end up shackled to an employer for years.