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YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#281

Post by komali2 »

davidw wrote: post #206
GuiA wrote: post #40

The lead the US has had in science/engineering/technology over the past 70+ years is in no small part due to the massive brain drain from Europe, and the rest of the world, due to fascist regimes. If the US's new shiny fascist regime keeps progressing at this pace, you can bet that things will reverse quickly. Good bye, world leading startups, nobel prizes, top universities, etc. These things can happen faster than o…

"Where to next"? I'm stumped, myself. Europe doesn't look very good right now. Australia? Or just hang out someplace nice like Chile and hope things blow over?

Taiwan has a low cost of living, highly educated population, fantastic universities, is deeply ingrained in hardware tech, has a relatively high immigrant population for students, and is very friendly to immigration.

Japan has phenomenal universities and many foreign-study programs.

New Zealand is pushing for international hires for tech and has several visa options available. It is has a very youth (20-30) oriented culture, is full of active people, and its natural resources are drop-dead gorgeous.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#282

Post by ythn »

wfo wrote: post #92
monksy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comment Rating: 1/10: Just another Political post > The lead the US has had in science/engineering/technology over the past 70+ years is in no small part due to the massive brain drain from Europe, and the rest of the world, due to fascist regimes. Awesome! I was curious about hearing more about this. > If the US's new shiny fascist regime keeps progressing at this pace, You're making a claim that is fairly recent an…

Pretending you can ignore politics in any discussion other than a technical seminar about compiler optimization is in itself a political position: you are supporting the people who can afford to ignore politics at the expense of those who can't, endorsing the status quo whatever that happens to be. This post is about people who are worried about being banned/being banned from the country who previously could enter an…

Politics discussions are so unfruitful though. Everyone replies to everyone else with the exact same format:

"The problem with that way of thinking is [problem]. It's dangerous to think that way. In reality, my way of thinking is superior"

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#283

Post by khuey »

GuiA wrote: post #40

The lead the US has had in science/engineering/technology over the past 70+ years is in no small part due to the massive brain drain from Europe, and the rest of the world, due to fascist regimes. If the US's new shiny fascist regime keeps progressing at this pace, you can bet that things will reverse quickly. Good bye, world leading startups, nobel prizes, top universities, etc. These things can happen faster than o…

> People also seem to get stuck on "China" in my comment. If that makes you unhappy, replace that word with Brazil, Japan, Singapore, Estonia, whatever you want... the point is, viewed under the "startup lens", this new administration makes the dominance of the US in STEM/entrepreneurship ripe for disruption by a more nimble, flexible entity.

The problem is that for various reasons, none of those are credible alternatives. One of the things keeping US dominance of science/engineering/technology going is that there's no place quite like it.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#284

Post by komali2 »

mehaveaccount wrote: post #214
clamprecht wrote: post #4

Wow. We often wonder how the Bay Area would be unseated as startup capital of the world. Maybe it'll be the US's immigration problem.

Calexit would allow California to bring in anyone they want though, and SF wouldn't have to worry about the US immigration policy screwing up it's tech scene. I'm looking forward to the Calexit proposition vote.

The obvious question is will the US government allow one of its most profitable states to leave? Highly doubtful. Great way to start another civil war, though!

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#285

Post by neptunespear »

dmode wrote: post #132

As someone who is tired of the decades long wait and uncertainty in the US immigration system, it would be amazing if tech companies were to open a Vancouver outpost and offer transfers to people in visas. I would take that in a heartbeat. May be YC can consider another incubator in Vancouver

Vancouver has been a popular place to transfer foreign talent to the U.S. for years. It's a short drive to Seattle, a short flight to San Francisco, and in the same time zone as both cities.

Famously, Facebook had an office in Coal Harbour that was just for transferring hires to Menlo Park, they didn't hire any Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

Even more famously, Microsoft's recent expansion in Vancouver, the "Excellence Centre" (doubling its workforce from 400 in Yaletown to 800), was mostly going to be for L-1 visa transfers to Redmond HQ. 360 of those positions were planned, with MS only promising 40 positions (5%) for citizens/PRs. The former Conservative government offered winking acknowledgement. However, voters in Canada were furious when the mass abuse of the TFW program came to light, which forced the government's hand.

The vast majority of positions at the "Excellence Centre" (which was opened by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and houses ~650 engineers as of now) have gone to locals. Anecdotally, I've heard that ever since the TFW backlash, the most popular cities in which to open visa transfer offices have been London and Zurich.

If you want to see the documents proving that MS was mostly going to hire visa transfers in Vancouver, documents obtained by CBC News under the province's access to information laws show what were the draft plans: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1685182-b-c-atip-doc...

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#286

Post by degenerate »

komali2 wrote: post #253
EternalData wrote: post #237

It's oddly ominous reading about America's rise on the back of textile patents taken from England and Europe, then poaching of German physics talent and scientific talent from across the world. Germany was, by far, the pre-eminent power in theoretical physics at the turn of the 20th century, with Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck & Born about to be at the peak of their powers. Then the country decided to turn on intellect…

As a Texan it boggled my mind to hear people complain about immigration. Walk into UT, A&M, UH engineering departments, half the students are Chinese or Russian or Indian. In the grad programs it's even more. That means their best talent is here , paying US taxes, contributing to US companies, making the US more powerful, all the while contributing almost nothing to their home countries. How is that a bad thing! I do…

You might want to take a step outside the academic setting every once in a while.

Chat with a cop, ambulance driver, or immigration officer from a sanctuary city if you really want to "get" it.

It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#287

Post by dougmany »

komali2 wrote: post #253
EternalData wrote: post #237

It's oddly ominous reading about America's rise on the back of textile patents taken from England and Europe, then poaching of German physics talent and scientific talent from across the world. Germany was, by far, the pre-eminent power in theoretical physics at the turn of the 20th century, with Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck & Born about to be at the peak of their powers. Then the country decided to turn on intellect…

As a Texan it boggled my mind to hear people complain about immigration. Walk into UT, A&M, UH engineering departments, half the students are Chinese or Russian or Indian. In the grad programs it's even more. That means their best talent is here , paying US taxes, contributing to US companies, making the US more powerful, all the while contributing almost nothing to their home countries. How is that a bad thing! I do…

I think the point the OP is making is that nothing last forever. Yes it is great now but the times they are a changing.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#288

Post by qntty »

EternalData wrote: post #237

It's oddly ominous reading about America's rise on the back of textile patents taken from England and Europe, then poaching of German physics talent and scientific talent from across the world. Germany was, by far, the pre-eminent power in theoretical physics at the turn of the 20th century, with Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck & Born about to be at the peak of their powers. Then the country decided to turn on intellect…

>There's an old saying out there that history is merely a set of cycles. I suppose we'll see if that is true in the upcoming years.

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#289

Post by some-guy »

komali2 wrote: post #253
EternalData wrote: post #237

It's oddly ominous reading about America's rise on the back of textile patents taken from England and Europe, then poaching of German physics talent and scientific talent from across the world. Germany was, by far, the pre-eminent power in theoretical physics at the turn of the 20th century, with Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck & Born about to be at the peak of their powers. Then the country decided to turn on intellect…

As a Texan it boggled my mind to hear people complain about immigration. Walk into UT, A&M, UH engineering departments, half the students are Chinese or Russian or Indian. In the grad programs it's even more. That means their best talent is here , paying US taxes, contributing to US companies, making the US more powerful, all the while contributing almost nothing to their home countries. How is that a bad thing! I do…

I agree with you 100%, but people who complain about immigration would argue that they're taking away the opportunities for Americans for the same education / positions.

Heck, that's what they say about undocumented migrant workers in agriculture. But seeing them in positions in the "intellectual elite" is even more threatening to them because such positions are seen as a position of power.

Re: YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas

#290

Post by davidw »

javajosh wrote: post #262
davidw wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Where to next"? I'm stumped, myself. Europe doesn't look very good right now. Australia? Or just hang out someplace nice like Chile and hope things blow over?

The USA is a vast place, actually composed of a diverse collection of communities. Thanks to Federalism, there is still some diversity within the states, and even local communities can be quite different. Consider 4 cities: Fergeson MO, Santa Monica CA, Chicago IL, Las Vegas NV. CA is currently considering universal healthcare, like HI has. It has also stated firm resistance to Trump's policies. NV has no state incom…

We're actually in Bend, Oregon right now and pretty happy. I'm ... pretty nervous about how things might go, though.
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