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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

#121

Post by mistermann »

bardworx wrote: post #75
Robelius wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigrants are a self-selecting group. The barriers you have to cross leave the most motivated individuals/families capable of coming here. The immigrating generation, at least from my experience, come with the intention of setting up their children with better possibilities. Their lives revolve around making their kids hard workers in school, which transfers over into their character. There's a joke in my community…

> Immigrants are a self-selecting group I find this offensive, as an immigrant. Also, my mother (and sister) worked in a sweat shop (they needle thread tags on imported/fake clothes underneath a laundromat) to put food on the table while going to school. My mother didn't "sacrifice" everything for us, she worked hard; became a programmer; and didn't allow my sibling and I to work less then her. > There's a joke in my…

I think you're being downvoted because you seem to disagree with the comment to which you're responding, but I think you probably just accidentally misunderstood it?

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

#122

Post by digikata »

winter_blue wrote: post #114
staunch wrote: post #6

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…

> These are wealthy upper class people coming to the most logical place They usually need to get an H-1B visa as part of the immigration process. You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous. > A foreigner that can afford elite credentials Many of their families probably can barely afford to pay for college in the U.S., but they scoop up the money to do s…

Well you can basically pay to immigrate via an EB-5 visa which grants a green card for the right amount & kind of capital investment.

https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5

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

#123

Post by zmitri »

pandaman wrote: post #7

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?

Increasing H1B caps does help immigrant founders who aren't already millionaires. I've been on an H1B visa and I've started my own startup. You can be on an H1B for your own company so long as it's clear there is a board that can fire you.

There's two ways to go about making it easier for immigrant founders to work legally in America: create a new startup visa class that is likely ridiculously nebulous, or increase the H1B cap. I think the second is much more likely to pass.

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

#124

Post by winter_blue »

silentElephant wrote: post #116
winter_blue wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are wealthy upper class people coming to the most logical place They usually need to get an H-1B visa as part of the immigration process. You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous. > A foreigner that can afford elite credentials Many of their families probably can barely afford to pay for college in the U.S., but they scoop up the money to do s…

He's not referring to H1Bs. http://goldsea.com/Text/index.php?id=6205 Sehat Sutardja. One of many such examples. All you needed to do was fly your pregnant wife over to get American citizenship...but that's changing now.

Your example, Sehat Sutardja, almost definitely got an H-1B visa after they graduated.

The H-1B is pretty much the only way one can stay after graduation (and OPT).

So your point is moot.

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

#125

Post by theparanoid »

chetanahuja wrote: post #113
staunch wrote: post #6

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…

Yeah just go on and make up shit as long as it makes you feel better. The foreigner that can "afford" elite credentials is actually a foreigner from a humble background who came through the most competitive process in the world and managed to get scholarship in a US graduate school. It's obvious that whoever you are, you haven't actually tried to get to know anything about these pesky foreigners'(who probably work wi…

Sundar's father was an engineer, not a typical person in India. Or even America.

When I worked in tech, I knew exactly one engineer from a low class background (American). It was eye opening seeing first hand how rare people of non educated backgrounds are in tech.

I'm no exception, all but one of my grand parents was educated.

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

#127

Post by winter_blue »

digikata wrote: post #122
winter_blue wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are wealthy upper class people coming to the most logical place They usually need to get an H-1B visa as part of the immigration process. You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous. > A foreigner that can afford elite credentials Many of their families probably can barely afford to pay for college in the U.S., but they scoop up the money to do s…

Well you can basically pay to immigrate via an EB-5 visa which grants a green card for the right amount & kind of capital investment. https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5

Are you kidding me? You need to invest at least $500,000 for the EB-5.

Most families don't have $500,000 to just invest in order to get their child a green card. A lot of international students I know worked part-time on-campus (permitted on the F-1 student visa) in order lessen the burden on their parents. Their families struggled to put together the money to pay for college in the U.S.

I went to Stony Brook University, and between the time I came in and graduated, tuition had risen by over 50% for international students. (State law did not restrict tuition hikes for foreign students.)

It's condescending of you to suggest an EB-5. Like "Let them eat cake": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

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

#128

Post by pavpanchekha »

frandroid wrote: post #83

> 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.

Not quite; 760 employees per company, but 168B overall. That makes for $5M of value per job. $5M is approaching the compensation of most of the average employee here.

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

#130

Post by zhemao »

taurath wrote: post #79
xiaoma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an Elon Musk or a Max Levchin shows up in your country itching to get to work, the best course of action is not to say, "couldn't we some how draw your kind of ambition out of a local?" Far better is to give them visas let them build in your country rather than elsewhere.

The better option is to make sure that everyone in your country that has the POTENTIAL to be an Elon Musk gets the education and skills they need to become him. Elon went to many prestigious private schools and had early childhood access to expensive computers, which is a common thread in MANY founders and current executives and VCs in the startup world. Meanwhile I know a lot of smart people who don't go to college…

These are not mutually exclusive possibilities. You can accept highly skilled immigrants AND improve your education system. If anything, doing the former might make it easier to do the latter, since those highly skilled immigrants will provide more tax revenue to spend on public education.
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