221–230 of 235 posts
Clicked this expecting to see much breast-beating about H1B and "driving down wages". Top comment has this: "And of course H1B visas drive down wages" Wasn't disappointed. Never change hacker news.
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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 H1…
It can take a while to hire someone for a history department position. If a department wants to hire someone with expertise in, say, Bhutan history during Jigme Dorji, and it takes two years to fill that position, and the best candidate is from Argentina, would you say there is a general shortage of history majors and we need to change immigration policy because of it?
No, I don't think you would, because you realize that "Given any specialized skill with enough demand in the job market, there will likely be shortages because there are so few specialists".
"The immigration system is full of unfair and arbitrary roadblocks"
Totally agree. But I still say that "STEM" is a nonsense term which should not drive the change to that policy.
What's worse is that "STEM" means two different things. I think you'll agree that a paleontologist who studies whale evolution is solidly part of the "S" in STEM. There's one group of people who look at STEM broadly, as a way to encourage others to enter a complex and challenging field. They might say, "you should study whale evolution because STEM is important." This comes out the liberal arts and humanist tradition. I am more a member of this group, except I don't limit myself to STEM appreciation.
There's another group which sees STEM more in terms of the subset that can be applied to business problems, like quant, materials science, and fluid mechanics, and be very confused about why someone would want to travel to India to dig up whale fossils, much less why the government should pay for it.
I believe most policy makers are in the latter group, and more concerned about STEM helps business. This leaves out most of the "S" fields in STEM, and likely most of the "M" fields.
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>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…
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Fun fact: the E-3 visa is basically an H1-B, but with a separate quota, for Australian citizens only. It was created by Bush to thank Australia for helping the US in the Iraq war.
Another key difference -with an E3 there's no path to a green card. A number of friends have had to change to L1/H1 visas because of this limitation.
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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…
> It is disgusting, dishonest and offensive how your portray every H-1B visa holder as a "low cost" worker.
Your Alinsky tactics will not work on me, my friend...you should try more substantive arguments.
I am glad you are doing so well as I, for one, never resent anyone successes in the world.
But facts are stubborn things, and in the aggregate, H1B workers increase corporate profitability at the expense of the established senior ones.
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The report described by the WSJ made that association which you and I agree is not reasonable to make. While you are correct about official data, my comment concerns the report. The report identifies immigrant founders by college degree, including John Collison, Daniel Saks, Mario Schlosser, and Michelle Zatlyn, all from Harvard. 4/60 immigrant founders of $1B+ startups have a Harvard education. I do not think 6.7% o…
I agree that it's unlikely that 6.7% of H-1B visa holders have a Harvard education. But about half the founders listed in the report[1] went to non-famous colleges. The broader policy question raised by the report however is about the current extremely restrictive low limit of 85,000 on H-1B visas, which are crucial for any immigrant student to be able to stay in the US. The report tries to show one way in which immi…
With your second sentence, are you trying to argue that about half of H-1B visa holder population went to famous colleges? Otherwise, what's your point?
My point is that the report gives anecdotes and numbers that cannot be used for sound policy decisions.
Anecdotes are nothing new. 100 years ago we would have read how Andrew Carnegie, son of poor Scottish weavers, became one of the wealthiest people in the US through his innovative steel company. While it's a valid point that immigrants can be helpful, it's also a valid point that the US has more than 100,000 citizens - neither point is all that useful. Or do you really think that most of the target audience won't be able to think of dozens of helpful contributions by immigrants, so need a reminder?
Numbers that cannot be used for policy decisions are also not new. I earlier give an example of the report "Most high tech companies are founded by founded by First/2nd gen immigrants", which is another statement that cannot be used to make a policy decision.
So you tell me, based on this report, are immigrants over- or under- represented as (co)founders of $1B+ startups? Should we have different policy changes if they are under-represented, vs. if they are over-represented? Or what if the number of immigrant founders is what we would except from population statistics?
Your views, frequently stated, are pro-immigration. That's fine. I support that, and I speak as an immigrant who is in turn the child of an immigrant.
But this report cannot be used to support your viewpoint other than with the trivial observation that there are ways in which immigrants are helpful.
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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…
What you might take from that is that, while you are neither "over-worked, or under-paid", you are under-educated about history, and more specifically labor history.
Your last line continues your tiring practice of name calling. Please stop.
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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…
Suppose each company had 10 co-founders, and 1 of every co-founder was foreign born. Then by the definition from this report, 100% of all companies would be founded by an immigrant.
Wow! Those immigrants are ambitious to have started every single one of the companies!
Now comes a new report, based on the same data, that says "Immigrants are 10% of founders but 15% of the population". Something's wrong - immigrants are underrepresented as founders. Are they lazy? Discriminated against? Do they face too much adversity?
So, two reports, one which says "foreigners started 100% of all companies" and the other "foreigners are underrepresented as founders", both base on the same data, but giving very different interpretations of the data.
I believe this report was deliberately structured to present the sound bite that "50% of $1B+ companies are founded by immigrants" so that people like you would think it's meaningful. Without knowing the overall founder population, you cannot make a strong conclusion one way or the other. This report does not give those numbers, nor does it make it easy to figure them out myself.
Hence why I say it's a propaganda piece meant to influence people who don't have the time to dig into policy wonk details. Like you.
The rest of your comment unfortunately continues the ill-informed anti-poor and anti-minority viewpoint that I pointed out earlier by adding racist stereotypes.
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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…
That explains why you have so little knowledge of labor history that you don't know what a "scab", is nor know of the strikes by people in a STEM field. You have neither the training nor the experience. What you might take from that is that, while you are neither "over-worked, or under-paid", you are under-educated about history, and more specifically labor history. Your last line continues your tiring practice of na…
I'm talking about the developer shortage I've witnessed and dealt with myself first-hand, and heard about from many people.
You haven't said a word about the shortage, instead you resort to ad hominem attacks criticizing me of not being "educated in history".
Paul Graham, Sam Altman, and many other respected figures in industry have said many of the same things I have. You also clearly hold a deep belief in the lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
This just goes to shows that your "no shortage" argument is a pure fiction that you obstinately refuse to let go, even when confronted with reality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The dot com bubble primarily wiped out companies with vacuous valuations.
Companies that generate useful value will continue to do live.
The best developers keep their jobs through the market cycles.