YC will hold interviews in Vancouver for founders who can’t get US visas • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by vineetch » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #286

komali2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Trump administration has stated it might cap H1B visas further. This move will directly impact academia and the Tech industry and the influx of top talent. By combining the issue of illegal immigration with legal high value H1B visas, the Trump administration and its supporters are not helping their own argument. There is a nuance there which the parent comment was correctly mentioning. You want the best of another country to come to the US as they have been or risk the slow spiral of insignificance that Germany faced.

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

#312

Post by nostrademons » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #143

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.

It's almost always the government that makes or breaks a country.

Only if there's no mechanism for bad governments to be replaced, peacefully.

We'll see if we still have that mechanism in 4 or 8 years, but in the meantime, I'll remain cautiously optimistic. The U.S. has had terrible presidents & strong political leaders before, ones who drove the country down a terrible path, and they've usually been forced out of power and their policies reversed within a decade. That's the great strength of democracy: it's not that it governs efficiently (it doesn't), but it provides an escape hatch so if a government is seriously going down the wrong path and everyone realizes it, the government doesn't last long.

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

#313

Post by mindcrime » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #286

komali2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

That sounds like a grossly inaccurate generalization to me. A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc. Interview farmers in the south and ask them how many American born workers are willing to even take many farm jobs.

These people most definitely are not "sucking the system dry". And a system that can be "sucked dry" has a design flaw which should be rectified anyway.

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

#314

Post by glibgil » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:14 PM UTC

degenerate wrote: post #286

komali2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, stereotypes are fun. Can I play too?

Chat with an immigrate in a sanctuary city if you really want to "get" it. It's the feeder high schools (mostly Irish Catholic) that make police and fire departments fraternal, recalcitrant, racist and corrupt.

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

#315

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#316

Post by rhcom2 » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

crikli wrote: post #308

komali2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The move from calling illegal aliens to illegal immigrants (or undocumented workers, or whatever) creates so much confusion. I don't know a single person, and I know a good number of Trump voters, who is opposed to legal immigration. What many people, myself included, are opposed to is the illegal part. Yet I consistently see this stance twisted to mean opposition to all immigration. This conflation is patently ridic…

Trump passed an EO stopped legal immigration from certain countries. I get your point but pretending Trump isn't also hostile to some legal immigrants seems naive.

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

#317

Post by throwahjh » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

ebola1717 wrote: post #217

refurb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US's new shiny fascist regime keeps progressing at this pace...the best thing countries like China could do right now is heavily fund things such as foreign PhD students. Wait, so you're saying everyone is leaving fascist USA, but China will be the beneficiary of that?

Consider that a lot of the talent the US attracts is from China, and they're leaving for economic rather than political reasons. If opportunities open up at home, and the US's standing erodes, that can swing a lot of momentum in their favor. Given the recent spikes in violence against Indian-Americans and tightening of immigration policies as a whole, Indian immigrants might also move to China rather than the US.

China and India are also deeply racist. I'm Indian, and I've been to China.

If you're brown skinned in China, you are treated far worse than you are in the US. Likewise, if you're Chinese (or look Chinese - people from the North East of India), most of India treats you very badly. And if you're a woman with Chinese features.. well let's just say that there's a (deeply pejorative) term for that in India.

In both countries, if you're white (occidental), you'll be treated MUCH MUCH better than a darker skinned person.

And if you're black.. it's even worse.

So it's not easy for Indians to move to China, or for a Chinese person to move to India. Of course moving back to your own country of origin is (usually) easier.

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

#318

Post by refurb » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

sqeaky wrote: post #105

67726e wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some people perceive the US to be worse than China. Those people are dangerously ignorant.

Why do you say that? I did not downvote you. And would be interested real and objective criteria for assessing which country is "worse" ethically or "worse" by some criteria you select.

Why do you say that?

By any objective measure the US's record on human rights far exceeds that of China. Has the US violated human rights? Sure. Does it try and remedy those situations? Yes.

China has zero qualms about putting people under house arrest for voicing opinions contrary to the Party. It doesn't come back and say "that was an injustice" it says "this is the right thing to do for China". Add on top of that forced abortions, mock trials, etc. The two countries aren't even comparable.

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

#319

Post by immigraway » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:18 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #313

degenerate wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies. That sounds like a grossly inaccurate generalization to me. A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc. Interview farmers in the south and ask…

It seems that each largish country has plenty of natives skilled enough and willing to do physical labor. It's the safety net at the base of the workforce. Forcing them to compete on a global labor market drives down wages and creates a bunch of social problems.

There are a ton of countries we generally view as being more "progressive" than the USA (Canada! Australia!) that have much stricter immigration standards for low-skilled labor. Consequently, the wage that the bottom of the workforce gets in those places is much higher.

Now, top intellectual talent is in scarce supply around the globe and I hope the US competes for that.

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

#320

Post by xiaoma » Thu, Mar 09, 2017, 7:18 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #297

xiaoma wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree that visas are a problem but I disagree that they will be "the problem" to unseat Silicon Valley as the world nexus of startups. I've spent most my adult life in Asia and have lived in several countries and cities that claim to be very serious about becoming the next tech hub. None of them have very liberal immigration policies. All have visas for highly skilled workers, all have visas for entrepre…

I agree that the most critical weakeness of Silicon Valley is real estate costs. I find it hard to imagine Beijing as a serious competitor though. If it were going to be anywhere in China I would expect it to be Shenzhen.

Shenzhen is a very different thing. It's important but not a challenger to SV. Huge startups come out of Beijing because it's the hub where the top students, founders, investors and regulators are.

If you look at Fortune's list of unicorns, 3 of the top 10 are in Beijing. As they build, they're strengthening the founder/techie/investor ecosystem in the city even further.

http://fortune.com/unicorns/