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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

#361

Post by BigChiefSmokem »

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…

The point is that what used to be legal (like say, visiting from a "Muslim-majority" country for tourism or to find work), or what should be legal, isn't... with bigotry and anti-intellectualism at the heart of it. Economics have nothing to do with it aside from the fact that an economy gets bigger the more people who participate in it - as in - we need more people, not less.

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

#362

Post by davidw »

javajosh wrote: post #340
davidw wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Consider that Trump actually can't do much. The Executive branch has the most visible power is at border crossings, particularly at airports. It's the fundamental power of group leadership (ownership?): "Who's in, and who's out." Trump is intoxicated on the prospect of wielding that power. "How things might go". Hmm. There are three ways things could go rotten. Some all or none could happen: a) Muslim registration, i…

I don't think it's that bad yet, and it may well not end up that way. I think David Frum's article was pretty good in terms of how things might go badly:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-...

My wife has a green card though, so who knows. They've already shown they have no regard for things like that.

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

#363

Post by vkou »

drpgq wrote: post #160
mck- wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a scenario where more YC companies set up shop in Vancouver, and US investors follow to bet on the next Slack up here, then this will naturally change as a function of supply/demand.

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

The highest marginal income tax rate in Vancouver, BC is 47%.

The highest marginal income tax rate in California is 52%.

For that tax money, in Vancouver, you will also get free* healthcare.

In San Francisco, you will get... Actually, I'm not sure what you'll get. The biggest prison system in the world? The biggest military in the world?

* At the higher tax brackets, you will need to pay a $1,800/year MSP premium for a family, or $900/year for an individual.

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

#364

Post by aanm1988 »

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.

The US is a democracy with a flawed government in power. The system of checks and balances is still in place. The president isn't nearly as powerful as he wants to be.

China is an actual authoritarian regime guilty of many human rights violations. I can say whatever I want about Trump in the states. Try that in China against Chinese leadership.

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

#365

Post by trcollinson »

jimmyk wrote: post #352
trcollinson wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>These will all be true regardless of the immigrants status and background. Are you seriously suggesting that immigrants of all backgrounds are equally likely to be beneficial to this country?

I did not make that statement at all. The part you quoted references an implication that if you ask cops, ambulance drivers, and immigration officers about immigrants they will talk about immigrants in the light of what they see.

I'll be very clear. Immigrants and non-immigrants are not equally beneficial to the country. No one is equally beneficial to the country.

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

#366

Post by neptunespear »

muninn_ wrote: post #147
JamilD wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's necessarily true. The Bay Area's become an international hub for tech, not just a domestic one — many influential founders (including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel) were born outside the United States.

I don't disagree. It is the world's premier tech hub. But a fleeting 4 year long ban on immigrants wouldn't turn the city to rubble and leave everybody without jobs as Google and Y Combinator pack up bags and move to Tijuana and Beijing. There are larger forces at play here than that.

Isn't it a bitter irony that someone who became successful in Silicon Valley (Peter Thiel) was a driving force to get a president, whose policies could potentially lead to a bit of a decline for Silicon Valley, elected?

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

#368

Post by aanm1988 »

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #235
joshuaheard wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China forces its citizens to have abortions if they have more than 2 children, and they censor the internet, so you can't access social media, like Facebook for instance. So, I would say they are ethically worse than the U.S.

In terms of Human rights, it would be better to be in the US. But things change. US is becoming more fascist which is potentially leading to an exodus of intelligent minds - who are perhaps going to be migrating to one of their main competitors, China. The one good thing about China is that they are open to changes in their policies (but can't change the party). It will be interesting to see how this plays out with a…

Why China instead of say, the EU?

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

#369

Post by ng12 »

neptunespear wrote: post #358
Pxtl wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be delicious and terrible irony if Vancouver took over the role of startup capital, since it is the only place with a more unaffordable housing market than the SF bay.

$600 CAD/month for a bedroom in a house that's close to frequent transit and in a low-crime area isn't hard to find if you don't have your heart set on living right in downtown Vancouver. I am not going to pay $2200/month to live in gangland-torn East Menlo Park.

Do you still live in the 1980's? Belle Haven is not gangland.

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

#370

Post by TorKlingberg »

immigraway wrote: post #328
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…

Current changes proposed to US immigration policy would cost the country a small number of high-skilled individuals from the Middle East (a few thousand) and a large supply of agricultural workers from Latin America (~10 million). It's a small impact on the overall competitiveness of the US, hardly equivalent to the Nazi brain-drain.

There are a lot of very smart people from Iran. Sure, the current travel ban is only a small portion, but Trumo has only been in power for just over month. There is no reason to think he and Bannon are satisfied.
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