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Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

startupvisa.com

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Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#31

Post by jbooth »

tptacek wrote: post #25
jbooth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but your objection makes no sense and is probably rooted (apologies, and read this in a courteous tone) in the fact that you saw Kerry's name and had a gut reaction + ipso facto (FYI, Lugar's a republican). The legislation proposed moves us from "no way, no how" to "imperfect system" -- if you're primarily for relaxing immigration policies for professionals, you should support the bill in principle, favor it ov…

I canvassed Toledo for Kerry in '04. I got chased off someone's property for knocking on a door doing GOTV for ACT without noticing that the guy was flying a Confederate Flag. I donate to liberal political causes. I'm not just liberal: I'm a Democrat . You're doing your argument a disservice by engaging with personalities (rightly or, here, wrongly) instead of ideas. This isn't a personal criticism, because I demonst…

Well, I suppose I'm just massively misunderstanding your objection here.

It seems that we share the goal of increased immigration of professionals and enabling them to succeed in america, shared prosperity and all of that..

This bill, to me, is incremental progress towards that goal but flawed on some specifics.. do you agree?

Is your opposition a case of "not good enough and hold out for better"? The specifics about VCs controlling the visa are the deal-breaker for you? How is that so much worse than H-1B where the employer controls the visa?

Honest questions, I really don't understand the argument.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#32

Post by philwelch »

mlinsey wrote: post #29
philwelch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from keeping him in the news, how does this help Lugar? More to the point, how does this help Lugar in Indiana ?

Lugar is an institution of his own. He's been in the Senate for 33 years. When you reach that level of incumbency, you stop having to worry about how each bill of yours affects your re-election chances.

Perish the thought, but are you somehow implying a Senator is attempting to be a wise and responsible statesman? That kind of nonsense will never fly in this country.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#33

Post by neurotech1 »

tptacek wrote: post #5
icey wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "overt ability to terminate the residency status..." you mean that they can opt to not further invest, right? I couldn't see anything that gave them the ability to otherwise control the status of the visa holders; but it's possible that I missed some nuance in the bill. I think the goal is to prevent abuse of loopholes as much as possible - stopping corporations from becoming "investors" in order to circumvent the…

Yes. If you start a company that employs 5 Americans and generates $900,000 in revenue, any VC you negotiate with gets to factor "deportation" into their terms.

From the senate statement; " a minimum of $250,000 -- into the immigrant's startup venture. If after two years the immigrant entrepreneur can show that he or she has generated at least 5 full-time jobs in the United States, attracted $1,000,000 in additional investment capital, or achieved $1,000,000 in revenue, then he or she would receive permanent legal resident status."

My personal thoughts are that it should be possible to start a company overseas, get far enough along to secure $250k in VC funding. Also, I would be surprised to find a successful startup that can't get $1m in revenue within 2 years.

While a VC can control additional investments, they have less control over revenue than most founders. A successful start-up should not be dependent on VC funding after 2 years unless it grows exponentially and needs the funds for growth.

Also the terms after 2 years are less than for an existing EB-5 visa.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#35

Post by neurotech1 »

tptacek wrote: post #8
lionhearted wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a bill that proposes to give US venture capitalists the overt ability to terminate the residency status of founders and their families. False. "To make visas available, we would amend immigration law to create a new EB-6 category for immigrant entrepreneurs. We would draw from existing visas under the EB-5 category. The EB-5 permits foreign nationals who invest at $1 million in the U.S., and thereby creates…

Here's the text of the proposed bill: ‘‘(3) SPONSORED ENTREPRENEURS.—The Sec- retary of Homeland Security shall terminate the per- manent resident status of a sponsored entrepreneur and the alien spouse and children of such entre- preneur if the Secretary determines, not later than 3 years after the date on which such permanent resi- dent status was conferred, that— ‘‘(A) the qualified venture capitalist or qualified…

You did mis-interpret the gist of the bill.

The VC funders have less significantly less control than a employer of a H-1B visa.

Basically they are saying you have a 2 years (max 3 years) to meet the requirements (investment and jobs)of the visa, or go home. A EB-5 visa has a 2 year "conditional status" along similar lines.

A H-1B visa, the employer can terminate your job, and you have 30 days to leave the country. A VC can't do that unless the founders have given up their controlling interest.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#36

Post by tptacek »

jbooth wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I canvassed Toledo for Kerry in '04. I got chased off someone's property for knocking on a door doing GOTV for ACT without noticing that the guy was flying a Confederate Flag. I donate to liberal political causes. I'm not just liberal: I'm a Democrat . You're doing your argument a disservice by engaging with personalities (rightly or, here, wrongly) instead of ideas. This isn't a personal criticism, because I demonst…

Well, I suppose I'm just massively misunderstanding your objection here. It seems that we share the goal of increased immigration of professionals and enabling them to succeed in america, shared prosperity and all of that.. This bill, to me, is incremental progress towards that goal but flawed on some specifics.. do you agree? Is your opposition a case of "not good enough and hold out for better"? The specifics about…

There are two specifics to this bill that I object to.

The first is giving venture capitalists this role in public policy.

The second is carving out visas for a form of entrepreneurship modeled on VC-funded tech startups.

If a business creates jobs, I don't see how it's relevant to public policy that it hits a $1MM revenue threshold or (even more weirdly) a $1MM capital investment requirement.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#38

Post by icey »

maxklein wrote: post #34

That's pretty cool. So all I need to do is to get a friend of mine to register as an Angel, then give him 100k I've got my Visa. A lot of people can raise 100k - this seems like it would cause a lot of immigration to happen.

They've proposed strict requirements as to who can perform these kinds of investments in order to prevent the kind of loophole you're describing.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#39

Post by tptacek »

maxklein wrote: post #34

That's pretty cool. So all I need to do is to get a friend of mine to register as an Angel, then give him 100k I've got my Visa. A lot of people can raise 100k - this seems like it would cause a lot of immigration to happen.

You'll be ejected when you can't raise $1MM in revenue or (worse) capital within three years. For a lot of people, maybe that doesn't matter; the bill doesn't set out any practical way to ensure that visa applicants are bona fide.

Re: Senators Kerry & Lugar Introduce the Startup Visa Act

#40

Post by tptacek »

icey wrote: post #38
maxklein wrote: post #34

That's pretty cool. So all I need to do is to get a friend of mine to register as an Angel, then give him 100k I've got my Visa. A lot of people can raise 100k - this seems like it would cause a lot of immigration to happen.

They've proposed strict requirements as to who can perform these kinds of investments in order to prevent the kind of loophole you're describing.

Those requirements are, in their entirety: that you are an accredited investor, and that you've made 2 $50k equity investments within the last 3 years.
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