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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

#341

Post by neptunespear »

Combined with Expa Labs opening an office in Vancouver, it seems that President Trump is the best thing that could ever happen to Vancouver's tech scene. Our anchors historically have been companies like IBM, HSBC, Nokia, and Ericsson, which are all shells of their former selves and have long since closed down their presences in Vancouver. The few existing long-term anchors include MDA and Vision Critical, and SAP's BI division (SAP BusinessObjects and BusinessObjects Cloud, which originated from a local startup called Crystal Decisions which was purchased by SAP in 2008 by way of some Seagate M&As), along with gamedev and film/TV VFX studios which are all feast-or-famine. Just look at the fate of Radical, Roadhouse Interactive, United Front Games, Pixar's office in Vancouver. Sony Imageworks, A Thinking Ape and Animal Logic might go the same way if the loonie increases in value. HootSuite is set to go under eventually as CRM suites integrate social media management; they waited too late to IPO. So this might be the kick in the ass the Vancouver tech scene needs in the eventual post-HootSuite landscape.

So, I say, with all sincerity, "thanks, Trump."

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

#342

Post by immigraway »

komali2 wrote: post #284
mehaveaccount wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I think a red government will let a blue state leave (permanent electoral majority). I don't think the same would be true the other way around, because progressive values are more, shall we say, evangelical than those of the nationalists.

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

#343

Post by refurb »

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.

Calexit is a dead in the water idea. It's a waste of breath to even comment on it.

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

#344

Post by Hydraulix989 »

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…

If you look at Trump's ACTUAL actions (denying re-entry to "permanent resident" green card holders, etc.), you'll see that even Trump makes this conflation himself.

It's important to judge someone the most by what they do, and not just by what they say.

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

#345

Post by vineetch »

sremani wrote: post #325
vineetch wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 anoth…

H1B is currently randomized lottery, benefiting sweatshops cluttering the pipeline, Current administration is not eliminating it but at least from their talk its about restoring their original intent, to bring in extra-ordinary talent. Which might actually be good news for SV, depending on how it is implemented?

Google, Microsoft, Netflix & Facebook benefit directly from H1B visas and are most certainly not "sweatshops". Even when you consider companies that pay less than the top tech companies, no one would consider them sweatshops. So hyperbole aside, and keeping in mind that H1B also brings academic talent to universities, the hate towards the H1B program seems more rooted in a hate of immigration than a worry of the program not realizing its "original intent".

If you don't want 85,000 of the best talent in the world per year to power US companies' and academia's growth, that's fine. Go ahead and limit the visa program and risk that talent going elsewhere.

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

#346

Post by pera »

homakov wrote: post #121

Weird choice of country for this purpose. I wonder who needs visa to the US and doesn't need one to Canada, and I'm pretty sure the number is small.

Poles, for instance. But even when Canada, as the US, requires visas for most nationalities, it is extremely simple to apply for one (just scan your passport, fill out the online form and pay $7 CAD). On the other hand, applying for a visa to visit the US is a stressful and relatively expensive (~$180 USD) long process with a high chance of getting rejected. This is not new though.

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

#347

Post by aanm1988 »

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…

People say the right things but there is so much anti-immigrant sentiment right now. Immigrants have literally been getting shot and killed.

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

#348

Post by refurb »

Kluny wrote: post #203
drpgq wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, although taxes are a lot higher in Canada for anything beyond an average salary.

Yes, but you get healthcare and being non-white isn't illegal, so that helps. Also - not really? The highest federal tax bracket in Canada is 33%. The highest in the states is 39%. The highest provincial rate in BC is 12% and that's about the same as California. I'm sure there's a lot of variation depending on an individual's situation, but you're really deluding yourself if you think American taxes are low, for the…

Yes, but you get healthcare and being non-white isn't illegal, so that helps.

That made me chuckle. You think Canada doesn't have racists? Good lord.

And sure, if you just look at the income tax rates BC looks reasonable. Of course, if you look closer at the actual income brackets for each rate, it looks very different. That doesn't even include the sales tax (up to 15% in some provinces), taxes on alcohol, gas, etc.

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

#349

Post by nsm »

exabrial wrote: post #20

Who is having trouble getting a Visa exactly? Just curious, trying to separate fact from hysteria

I understand this post is more startup-visa focused, but generally the US employment based visa and permanent residency system is fucked. I'm in the US on a work visa, but due to my nationality am looking at over a decade of wait time for getting permanent residency. This means I've to stay in the country at fear of losing my job, pay top of the line taxes and still not get any rights during my best years. Which is highly unfair. Canada is a culturally similar first world country where I can get to a citizenship quickly. The only thing preventing me from moving tomorrow is the large difference in tech industry size. If more and more companies set up shop in Canada, I'm ready to go.

You could say that things are how they are, and if I don't like it, I should go back to my home country, but I _want_ to be American/Canadian. I identify with the outdoor, adventurous culture of the American West more than anything else. I am willing to pay my dues and become a well integrated citizen, but this country doesn't want me to, because it continues to conflate people like me with immigrants who don't pay taxes or commit crimes. Or because it has weird laws that cause these delays and a government unwilling to change that because indentured labor is better for existing companies. I already see Canada being a much better choice in a few years.

So the problems for highly-skilled people who want to to become a part of the US are more widespread than just having difficulty getting a visa. If this YC experiment is an indicator of things to come, and more tech companies lead to better salaries in Vancouver, I can see many engineers taking their taxes and skills north of the border.

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

#350

Post by throw_away_777 »

trcollinson wrote: post #309
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.

You make an interesting appeal. I am not sure what you are trying to prove by saying that the poster will "get" it if they just talk to cops, ambulance drivers, and immigration officers. I would assume that you are trying to say they will find that immigrants commit crime (the original poster is speaking to a cop), they get hurt more often (the original poster is speaking to an ambulance driver), and they, now I am r…

US citizens pay taxes, contribute to US companies and make the US more powerful. US citizens also contribute a higher percentage of their income to local communities than immigrants do. It is a myth that their is an infinite supply of jobs, and that supply/demand somehow doesn't apply to immigration. You aren't really making an argument either.
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