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Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

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171–180 of 701 posts

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#171

One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all.

Another insidious equivalence of equating immigration policy geared towards unskilled, illegal immigrants with immigration policy in general. Let the downvotes begin.

It's pretty clear that actual immigrants seem to equate them pretty well.

It's why Asian-Americans went from being part of the Republican base to overwhelmingly voting Democratic.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#172
post #20
post #10

Whenever I see "Immigration" in the title, i think anti-Trump and get sad. No one is trying to stop legal immigration. Tech companies are mad because they are cracking down on H1-B Visa abuse. This is not a bad thing.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States..." - https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-... Did you mean no one in the sense that no one knows healthcare is complicated?

How many of those founders are muslims?

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#173
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issues of H1-B Visa abuse aside, I think this guy was trying to stop legal immigration: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/kent-shooting... I don't think articles like "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups" are all about anti-Trump, it's more like pointing out to the American public that immigrants are not a tax on the rest of society.

Not true. 70% of Somalians in The Netherlands are still on welfare after 2 years. Most other Africans, most Middle-Eastern types etc all hover between 25 and 50%. In comparison, most Europeans hover around 1-5%. And this is from the CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics), which is a government institution. https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2015/31/zeven-van-de-tien-so... Edit: guys.. just read the link or come with rebutta…

Does that count people legally barred from working (e.g. refugees)?

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction often is more akin to "promising" and "not promising". Universities, employers, creditors, those looking for a spouse, etc. Everyone does it to some degree. Why can't a country?

Because the populist parameters used to define usefulness of a person is incorrect. You think a person from Mexico is more useless than a person from Canada?

More importantly, how can you not think that? Logically a Canadian is going to be culturally a better fit, financially better off, and more educated and skilled.

It's got nothing to do with race or nationality, just a statement about the average Mexican vs the average Canadian. Don't throw logic out the window in service to liberal ideals.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#175

I assume what they really mean by Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups is that 51% of $1B+ U.S. startups have at least one immigrant founder , right? (as opposed to 51% of unicorn founders are immigrants )

It also heavily depends on the definition of "immigrant". Uber is listed, for example. The two founders of Uber are Travis Kalanick (born in Los Angeles, not an immigrant) and Garrett Camp (born in Canada, resides in San Fransisco). Is Garrett Camp an immigrant? Sure sounds like it. But is that really in the spirit of "founded by immigrants"? I am not arguing in favor of an immigrant ban in any way, I think it's a ba…

> I feel the inclusion of people like Camp and Musk hurts the point the story is trying to make.

I think the point of the article still stands. The current immigration ban is limited to a handful of countries, but xenophobic bigotry generally extends towards anyone not born in the US.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, not much? Immigrants as a whole pay their way in the United States, have lower crime rates. The revenue generated by Google, Chobani, and other companies is not "Mickey mouse" money. Not to mention that Microsoft and Google both picked immigrants to be their leaders.

I'll assume you're talking about Brin when including Google in your post. He was 6 years old when he came to America. Maybe that is what is important. Did anyone pull stats on the value of companies started by immigrants who came to America already fully grown?

I think he is referring to Sundar Pichai

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#177

One of the basic premises of anti-immigrant policies is that you can somehow influence the ratio of "useful" vs "not-useful" immigrants. Apart from the idea of sorting people into useful and useless being inhumane, it also seems to be counterproductive. It looks like every kind of screening of immigrants will deter the more desirable ones, as far as that determination is possible on their arrival at all.

If you look at it from "most resourceful" it's fairly easy and as far as I remember to have read also how it's normally seen.

I.e. the US get 80% of the most resourceful immigrants while ex Europe get 80% of the least resourceful.

Will see if I can dig up the report.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#178
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be hard to have an immigration system which is biased toward useful vs. not useful. The question is: where do you want to have the cutoff? I'm in favor of a solid border control regime (i.e. "build the wall"), combined with a transparent and straightforward points-based system for mainly immigrant visas. I'd eliminate the inherent racism in the current system (penalizing India and China vs. Equatorial Gui…

Yeah I mean, the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in", so how do you decide who to let in? An immigration policy that is held be numerous other countries that favors skilled immigrants seems to be reasonable. On the other hand, brain drain. How will those countries continue to get better and enjoy a modern standard of living if all the smart people leave?

> the problem is that we can't afford to "let them all in"

Why is that? I'm genuinely curious. Are you making an economic or a cultural argument? On the economic side, there's no evidence that immigration, even mass immigration, has any negative consequences, apart from some more competition at the very low end of salaries, which should obviously be addressed. By and large, immigrants are net contributors to the economy.

> On the other hand, brain drain.

We can hypothesis that tight immigration policy actually creates more brain drain. It's so difficult to come to the US that you're not likely to go back, even for a few years, once you're here. If you can easily move between your country of origin and your country of immigration, you can probably alleviate the brain drain somewhat. Easy come, easy go.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#179
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are already centrally planning immigration. Changing the numbers around on our existing centrally planned system doesn't make it any more or less centrally planned.

It would be interesting to have baseline federal standards and then let states handle some immigration decisions, actually. In Canada the provinces can do that (so e.g. Quebec can fast-track you for citizenship for speaking French). In Switzerland it is basically all at the Cantonal level.

That'd require some better surveillance to ensure an immigrant permitted in one state does not work in another. I'm not sure that's constitutional, though it is quite practical.

Re: Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction often is more akin to "promising" and "not promising". Universities, employers, creditors, those looking for a spouse, etc. Everyone does it to some degree. Why can't a country?

I never finished university, and I started a bunch of companies. How do you sort out people on a "promising"/"not promising" scale for doing good things for the economy?

Having zero false negatives isn't a requirement
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