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

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

#211

Post by nmrm2 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #206

dalke wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is not a STEM shortage because "STEM" is a nonsense term. The companies you mentioned don't want to hire anthropologists, general relativity theorists, large animal biologists, nuclear power engineers, differential geometry experts, meteorologists, pharmaceutical chemists, or most of the other diverse fields in STEM. No, the shortage is only in from a much smaller subset of primarily programming related ski…

The idea that good programmers are as easily trainable as good welders is ridiculous. If that were the case, we wouldn't have a shortage. My company actually does try to train people. We hire people who come out of coding camps like General Assembly -- and we actually pay these camps when we hire them. Students attend these camps for free. After that, we pair program with them, and painstakingly explain various conce…

It is clear that you've never been through an entire market cycle.

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

#212

Post by winter_blue » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #210

winter_blue wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also no anthropogenic climate change according to the scientists that many GOP congressmen love to cite. There are an overwhelming number of organizations, companies, universities, and other institutions that have talked about the benefits of a less restrictive immigration system . You willfully chose to ignore all of them, and pick the ones that fit your false, preconceived, prejudiced beliefs. Do you reali…

Whoa easy with the name calling. I'd personally love a less restrictive immigration system. But OPT and H1B are very restrictive and benefit employers much more than they benefit society. The government and those that control the immigration system serves the people and I think they sometimes forget that and come up with policies that are very beneficial to employers at the expense of the middle class. I think this i…

Even with all their flaws, these visas are extremely beneficial to the immigrants themselves, above anyone else. The rare and lucky opportunity to build a life in the United States and become a citizen of the United States is priceless, and just a dream from most.

This dream is out of reach for most people who would like to come here, and the few that do make it here use one of these visas. That is why people like me freak out when people on HN (and elsewhere) rail against these visas. If these visas were harder to get (than they already are), most of us (including me) wouldn't be here -- or worse, the ones of us already here would get deported.

There are two groups of people:

(1) those that call for a better system where companies cannot displace native-born workers, where the visa holders cannot be exploited, and have more freedom and an easier route to a green card

(2) people that call for a shutdown or massive reduction of all immigration, both legal and illegal; people that say there is no labor shortage whatsoever, so we shouldn't let anyone in

It is the second group that worries me.

Most Democratic lawmakers, and at least a third (to half) of the republican lawmakers take the earlier (1) view. They make me happy. E.g. Chuck Schumer.

It is just that there are a few lone voices in the mainstream media who hold on to the (2) view. Like the Tea Party. Their reasons have less to with jobs and wages, and much more to do with "preserving American culture and values".

What is shocking and sad is that I find many here on Hacker News, a place I expect to be fairly progressive, holding the same extreme anti-immigration views as the far-right.

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

#213

Post by brianwawok » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #76

mc32 wrote: 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,…

I come from Spain, and the situation was very easy: Spain's cities have a midwest-like cost of living. A programmer there, right out of school, is what we call a mileurista: Someone with a take home of about a thousand Euros a month. In comparison, my first job in the midwest paid three times that. And that's the difference at the beginning of a career. Nobody programming over there will make more than, maybe, 3500 e…

So this plus even browsing job postings around England (which I can do better than job postings in Spain porque mi Espanol no es bueno), this seems generally true.

So big question. WHY are software developers paid so low in 1st world European countries, and so high in the US? Clearly a good software developer can save a company 100k, 200k, 500k Euros a year (think of replacing a bunch of office workers with a computer program). Why don't programmers get a bigger chunk of the pie?

GDP says the countries are fairly similar. Programming is a high skill job. Why would it pay so different in different locations?

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

#214

Post by ones_and_zeros » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #212

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa easy with the name calling. I'd personally love a less restrictive immigration system. But OPT and H1B are very restrictive and benefit employers much more than they benefit society. The government and those that control the immigration system serves the people and I think they sometimes forget that and come up with policies that are very beneficial to employers at the expense of the middle class. I think this i…

Even with all their flaws, these visas are extremely beneficial to the immigrants themselves, above anyone else. The rare and lucky opportunity to build a life in the United States and become a citizen of the United States is priceless, and just a dream from most. This dream is out of reach for most people who would like to come here, and the few that do make it here use one of these visas. That is why people like me…

You are not entitled to come to the US and work no matter how much you dream of it according to US law. You are young, make average $$ (and yes, at 150k total comp you are underpaid for a software developer in relation to the value you create), and you don't have skills that don't already exist within our borders or that can't be taught. I'm not too concerned about you not being here because you are actually displacing the best and brightest that I'd rather have immigrate here. The spirit of the H-1B program when it was introduced was to import the truly talented, not your average software developer with a bachelors degree. Over time the law has been bent and rewritten and abused by our industry to cut costs for the benefit of share holders and executives.

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

#215

Post by shas3 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #182

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…

No, there is not a STEM shortage because "STEM" is a nonsense term. The companies you mentioned don't want to hire anthropologists, general relativity theorists, large animal biologists, nuclear power engineers, differential geometry experts, meteorologists, pharmaceutical chemists, or most of the other diverse fields in STEM. No, the shortage is only in from a much smaller subset of primarily programming related ski…

> No, the shortage is only in from a much smaller subset of primarily programming related skills.

Heh? Have you tried hiring quants, materials scientists, fluid mechanics experts, RF engineers, supply chain experts, etc.? I have, and know friends who have been on both sides of the job hunt in these areas. It is often quite likely that you can only find international people for a job opening. Then, given how shitty H1B and green card systems are, you come up against the same problem: you invest tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the person and put yourself at the mercy of an arbitrary visa.

Given any specialized skill with enough demand in the job market, there will likely be shortages because there are so few specialists. Also, if 10 people apply for a job, you interview 3 of them, 1 of them is an international and that international performs better than the other 2, as a company looking for talent, wouldn't you want to necessarily hire the best candidate? The immigration system is full of unfair and arbitrary roadblocks to hiring international candidates for legitimate jobs, while enabling semi-legitimate gaming of the system by mass-recruiters such as Indian software services companies.

The market is not as elastic as you think as say, for a commodity like steel, to talk so naively and inexactly about supply, demand, and shortage. Supply-demand-shortage dynamics is more like specialized drugs, luxury items, and so on: where you have very specific needs on the demand side (i.e., hiring companies) and very specific issues affecting the supply side (candidates with specialized training and skills)

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

#216

Post by mahyarm » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 6:32 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #158

mahyarm wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Educated ambitious people of other countries move and work to somewhere where the opportunities are greater, and are willing to do so, leaving their home countries and families. This is a filter which causes these immigrants to be successful compared to the average disadvantaged unmotivated american. It's the old high vs low skill immigration debate.

I agree that it's nice to think that. However, you've now introduced a third axis. Axis #1, from the report, is that nationality diversity is important, in which case a white Protestant Canadian from Toronto brings more diversity than a Russian Orthodox Tlingit from rural Southeast Alaska. Axis #2, from tonyhb, is that adversity leads to success. In which a highly educated medical doctor from Iraq who, as a refugee,…

My logic went as so:

  1. Immigrants are a minority
  2. Yet immigrants found %50 of +$1B companies according to this article.
  3. My hypothesis as to why this is so is because they are ambitious educated people, even though they might be very poor when they arrive.

You notice a similar effect in schools. School performance is mostly dependent on the actual quality of the kids and the parents. High skill immigrant parents probably emphasised schooling and quality parenting a lot more than the low performing kids and thus you get a similar effect with high skill immigrants.

It's why you see so many high performing 2nd-generation asian kids, even though the parents started as very poor people from some starving village in china. The parent's tiger parenting style lead to elevated outcomes for them and their kids.

As far as refugees, that is why you have different visa categories, to reflect different immigration policies for different situations. High skill immigrants who are ambitious and found companies are a different separate thing than refugee immigration policy.

The reason why people conflate the different kinds of immigrants is because it's easy, even though there are many different kinds of immigrants.

---

As to why I said disadvantaged average american, is because america is a 1st world country with a 3rd world country inside of it. Compared to it's neighbor up north, there is significantly more violence, social inequality, rotting ghettos and uneducated poor people even though canada has an even more liberal immigration policy than the USA. The average american is probably less skilled and motivated than the average high skill immigrant.

Also adversity acts like a people filter. The people who can get through adversity and still thrive are usually pretty amazing people. It also can make you stronger than a person who lives a soft life.

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

#217

Post by chrisbennet » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 6:54 PM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #204

cubano wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so very true, and not only that, they use their ridiculous exclusionary and arbitrary hiring practices as a self-enforced proof that they absolutely need more low cost H1B workers.

I find it willfully ignorant, hateful, and racist how you keep demeaning immigrant workers by characterizing them as "low cost". I graduated very recently with a B.S. in Computer Science, and my total comp (incl. bonuses) at my current company is slightly over $150,000. I am not over-worked, or under-paid. (I have never met any of these "cheap workers" myself, but I'm sure they exist in some corners.) It is disgustin…

You most likely haven't met the low cost H1B's because you are so new to the industry or the 1 or 2 companies you've worked for aren't big companies that are outsourcing their work force. (This is not a criticism.)

The anger that some feel, is towards employers who say their is a STEM shortage but what they mean is that they can't hire someone cheaply enough. As Joel Spolsky said:

"Now, let's review some microeconomics. In a free market, it is almost axiomatic that the market always clears. That's a technical term that means that when somebody tries to sell something, if they are willing to accept the market price, they will be able to sell it, and when somebody wants to buy something, if they are willing to pay the market price, they will be able to buy it. It's just a matter of both sides accepting the market price.

The trouble comes when people are not realistic about market prices. "

Whaddaya Mean, You Can't Find Programmers? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html

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

#218

Post by nommm-nommm » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

supergeek133 wrote: post #198

nommm-nommm wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh yeah, depends totally on company policy for sure. I was just responding to the "anymore" part and adding in another reason why some companies claim "shortage."

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

#219

Post by lsc » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:54 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…

> 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.

how are the two things different?

Obviously, as you raise wages, you gain access to a larger pool of applicants.

I am not making a moral judgment about people who are unwilling to pay more than X for a service... but my point is just that in a free market, "there is not enough supply of service X" means exactly the same thing as "the price of service X is too high"

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

#220

Post by thetruthseeker1 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:59 PM UTC

No matter how you feel about the whole legal immigration thing, If it is true that immigrants who form significantly less than 51% of the working population found 51% of the startups there is an interesting insight statistically speaking (This is not normal, but good)

May be there needs to be a distinction between the kind of immigrants who go on to found startups vs the one who come to take low paying jobs. May be create different visa category for each. Encourage one discourage another(limiting it), but that doesn't mean that every person who comes under 1st category starts a company or everybody who comes under the second category doesn't start a company.

I see it as math, maximize one function and minimize the other.