Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by nommm-nommm » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #172

jmspring wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm jaded. But stories like this are planned to divert to things like what IBM are doing or job shops like Tata,etc. "Oh look at what immigrants are contributing in entrepreneurial sense, but ignore how big companies are moving jobs overseas." IBM and Disney, iconic US brands are at the for front of outsourcing local jobs using H1B scabs as the route.

Well, there are two groups of companies. Companies that can't find the talent that they need in this country, and companies trying to save money. There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't. Ask any hiring manager at a tech company. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and many, many other companies do not underpay or maltreat their visa-holding employees in any way. It is p…

>There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't.

1) STEM is a term so board to be nonsensical in this context.

2) There may be some self-imposed "shortage" but that doesn't mean anything. Anyone can come up with a job with qualifications impossible to meet. Especially if this is a fake [1] job opening created solely so you can say "shortage!"

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Who is really being dishonest?

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

#192

Post by jcuga » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 1:22 PM UTC

What good is a billion dollar startup if it pays little US tax, and only employs one or two hundred high paying jobs? A 100 Million dollar company typically employs just as many high paying jobs and may pay more US tax than a lot of these tech companies.

Also, a lot of these tech companies that are "shaking up" industries are profitable at the expense of other more traditional businesses (For example: AirBnB taking business from Hotels, Uber from taxi services, etc).

So bringing in more Billion dollar unicorn startups may not be the best thing for a country.

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

#193

Post by supergeek133 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 1:40 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #172

jmspring wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm jaded. But stories like this are planned to divert to things like what IBM are doing or job shops like Tata,etc. "Oh look at what immigrants are contributing in entrepreneurial sense, but ignore how big companies are moving jobs overseas." IBM and Disney, iconic US brands are at the for front of outsourcing local jobs using H1B scabs as the route.

Well, there are two groups of companies. Companies that can't find the talent that they need in this country, and companies trying to save money. There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't. Ask any hiring manager at a tech company. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and many, many other companies do not underpay or maltreat their visa-holding employees in any way. It is p…

I also think part of the "not finding talent" problem is requirements on college degrees. It's just not necessary anymore.

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

#194

Post by brianwawok » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #172

jmspring wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm jaded. But stories like this are planned to divert to things like what IBM are doing or job shops like Tata,etc. "Oh look at what immigrants are contributing in entrepreneurial sense, but ignore how big companies are moving jobs overseas." IBM and Disney, iconic US brands are at the for front of outsourcing local jobs using H1B scabs as the route.

Well, there are two groups of companies. Companies that can't find the talent that they need in this country, and companies trying to save money. There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't. Ask any hiring manager at a tech company. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and many, many other companies do not underpay or maltreat their visa-holding employees in any way. It is p…

If there aren't enough STEM candidates in the US, pay more. How many smart people right now go into law and finance, both fields of which have possibly too many candidates?

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

#195

Post by nommm-nommm » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:14 PM UTC

supergeek133 wrote: post #193

winter_blue wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there are two groups of companies. Companies that can't find the talent that they need in this country, and companies trying to save money. There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't. Ask any hiring manager at a tech company. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and many, many other companies do not underpay or maltreat their visa-holding employees in any way. It is p…

I also think part of the "not finding talent" problem is requirements on college degrees. It's just not necessary anymore.

I don't think that a degree was ever necessary, there's always been self taught people. It's just the amount of accessible info on the Internet makes it much easier to self teach nowadays.

I don't know about Facebook/Google specifically but some companies will only interview/hire people with experience/know how in the very specific technology stack they use. I guess because they don't want the employee to "waste" time learning a new language/framework.

You miss out on some great engineers that way. Thankfully my job doesn't require new hires to know the syntax of any particular programming language.

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

#196

Post by ambrood » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

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

Except most immigrants out here in the valley at the very least take the old F1 student > H1B visa route. H1B is practically the only option you have to work in this country regardless of whether you got that PhD at Stanford or came here through an "outsourcing firm".

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

#197

Post by flurben » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

The study found that 51 percent of the country’s $1 billion startup companies had at least one immigrant founder.

To say that "immigrants founded 51% of U.S. billion-dollar startups" seems a bit misleading to me.

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

#198

Post by supergeek133 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

nommm-nommm wrote: post #195

supergeek133 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think part of the "not finding talent" problem is requirements on college degrees. It's just not necessary anymore.

I don't think that a degree was ever necessary, there's always been self taught people. It's just the amount of accessible info on the Internet makes it much easier to self teach nowadays. I don't know about Facebook/Google specifically but some companies will only interview/hire people with experience/know how in the very specific technology stack they use. I guess because they don't want the employee to "waste" tim…

I'm sure that's true for startup-y type companies.. but I'm in Minnesota (3M, Best Buy, Target, Honeywell) where unless you know someone even getting in the door for a first interview without a degree can prove impossible.

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

#199

Post by flurben » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

chiaro wrote: post #70

moistgorilla wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Unchecked immigration is always a negative for native workers. It can be accurately described as wealth redistribution from workers to the companies that employee them. They cause $515 billion in losses for native workers and $565 billion gains for native businesses. Look at the chart on page 9 https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/03-16-16%20Bo...

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…

H-1B is explicitly a non-immigrant visa.

therefore any economic consensus about immigrants is not relevant to the H-1B.

This common misunderstanding is exactly what NFAP, the right-leaning think tank who wrote this study, is trying to exploit.

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

#200

Post by mavelikara » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

nommm-nommm wrote: post #191

winter_blue wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there are two groups of companies. Companies that can't find the talent that they need in this country, and companies trying to save money. There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't. Ask any hiring manager at a tech company. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and many, many other companies do not underpay or maltreat their visa-holding employees in any way. It is p…

>There definitely is a STEM shortage, and you are being really dishonest if you say there isn't. 1) STEM is a term so board to be nonsensical in this context. 2) There may be some self-imposed "shortage" but that doesn't mean anything. Anyone can come up with a job with qualifications impossible to meet. Especially if this is a fake [1] job opening created solely so you can say "shortage!" [1] https://youtube.com/wat…

IMO, there is plenty of dishonesty going around, from both sides of this argument:

A) "H-1B are the best and brightest of the world!" B) "H-1B is only about hiring cheaper programers!"

Looking at the publicly available H-1B data, it is pretty clear (to me, at least) that both these arguments are caricatures - some truth, but huge exaggerations.

Everyone who holds on tight to one extreme of this spectrum, vociferously arguing against the existence of other cases look dishonest to me.