Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#121

Post by aanm1988 » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 8:31 AM UTC

davidw wrote: post #80

These threads always have a great mix of: * Subtle racism. * Zero-sum thinking. * Specifically, the lump of labor fallacy. * People not realizing that code is about the easiest thing in the world to ship back and forth between different countries: if a company is hell-bent on being cheap, they'll outsource rather than bring someone in. * A stunning lack of perspective on the benefits that immigrants bring to the econ…

> * A lack of historical perspective in a country founded by immigrants. There were 0 restrictions prior to 1860-something, and then it was something racist to keep the Chinese out.

You can demand changes to immigration policy, include restrictions on immigration, without being a hypocrite just because your family came here 100 years ago. It's also no longer a country where you can dump pretty much limitless numbers of people into farming or lower skill labour jobs.

edit: and the racism isn't really all that subtle. H-1B == Indians here, and HN has no problem shitting on them.

I also really enjoy being told how I'm stealing a job, and how little money I make. I don't actually remember posting the details of my pay anywhere, but I guess I must have.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#122

Post by aanm1988 » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 8:39 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #45

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #4

I wish every one of these stories would talk about that there are at least a couple of different kinds of h1b's. Facebook mostly or only has employees doing real, original work. But companies like Tata just are hiring for basic, mostly non-creative IT work. The second category (I think) is much more likely to lead to displacement of native workers. It's at least much more questionable. But h1b's at Microsoft or Googl…

I can't speak to Facebook, but all the H1B's I knew from Microsoft were drones at best. U of W churned out hundreds of people each year who would have loved to have those jobs.

I question this post. First off, they hire H-1Bs into normal SWE roles. Second, U of W is University of Washington right? A school with a very well regarded CS program. Why would they have hundreds of graduates not getting jobs? Why would those graduates want to go be "drones" at microsoft?

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#123

Post by aanm1988 » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 8:41 AM UTC

kcorbitt wrote: post #49

psykotic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The obvious way to make H1B work for the high end software engineers is to approve applicants based on highest paid applicant first, instead of via a random lottery. This would grant a massive advantage to companies like Google and Facebook over smaller companies, and more generally to geographic locales and parts of the industry with higher pay. In terms of economic and competitive impact for those companies and f…

...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else. Successful companies should be able to command the best, most scarce resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point of the free market.

> comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else

I'd actually argue that google especially is absolutely not the case. How many skilled people do they have stuck in bullshit jobs? They get away with it because they shove money and the google reputation in peoples faces all day long.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#124

Post by aanm1988 » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 8:54 AM UTC

jordache wrote: post #91

virmundi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only because they are here by breaking the intent and possibly the letter of the law. If they are here because they have real skills, great. I care while they're here. If they are drones used to illegally displace workers, boot them out. The reason it's not an "everybody's equal" thing is that a person in another country has less of chance of directly contributing to the betterment of the US. A native US has a higher…

fair argument. I will agree with you.

How is that a fair argument? It's anti-immigrant BS.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#125

Post by aanm1988 » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 8:55 AM UTC

YR372zm87 wrote: post #79

jordache wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but these h1b holders live in your town, and possibly your next door neighbor. gotcha!

I care less about them than they natives they displaced by getting visas handed out for reasons other than their intended purpose. I know my next door neighbors. Not H1B holders. Don't be an troll.

Your neighbors could be H-1B holders.

I can respect the economic arguments for it, even if I often disagree with them. This is just... not racist but it's about as foul in it's own way.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#126

Post by invalid-access » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 9:03 AM UTC

YR372zm87 wrote: post #118

invalid-access wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What's wrong with caring about your fellow taxpaying citizens who's vote might affect you more than someone that's possibly displacing them?" ? H1B holders pay as much tax as citizens do (more, in fact, given they cannot benefit off Social Security, but still have to contribute to it). AND they don't get to vote. What's the argument in this case?

They (and their families) haven't been paying taxes into the community their entire working lives like the natives have. The argument is that the people who have been contributing to the society more and for longer should get to see some benefits from the system before someone who has contributed literally nothing to your community shows up. That's why out of state students pay way more for tuition than in-state stud…

Um, I guess thank you for defining my reasoning as wacky. Turns out, I agree with your logic, but want to point out that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that you support.

1. Do you like the fact that out-of-state/country students pay more for tuition (thus subsidizing the education of the good native people)?

2. If so, do you like the fact that H1B pay taxes (thus subsidizing Social Security for the good native people)? The H1B is term-limited to 6 years, and people need to leave the country if they no longer work (or pay taxes). So the do NOT benefit indefinitely at the expense of the community who have been long-term tax payers. With respect to tax, the H1B is totally a pay-to-pay (a little bit pay-extra-to-play, even) visa.

[Edit: We already established that H1B holders can NOT vote. So they cannot affect your community of long-term tax-paying natives in that manner].

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#127

Post by jaredklewis » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 10:26 AM UTC

aanm1988 wrote: post #123

kcorbitt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and that financial firepower, and resulting ability to outbid everybody else, comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else. Successful companies should be able to command the best, most scarce resources -- that's just efficient asset allocation, and is the entire point of the free market.

> comes because they're using their workers more productively than anybody else I'd actually argue that google especially is absolutely not the case. How many skilled people do they have stuck in bullshit jobs? They get away with it because they shove money and the google reputation in peoples faces all day long.

It's a reasonable qualitative analysis, but quantitatively Google is able to earn far more per employee than most other businesses. Google has ~70k employees and ~6 billion in revenue per quarter. Google is objectively more efficient, as reflected by their profits.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#128

Post by jordache » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 1:29 PM UTC

aanm1988 wrote: post #124

jordache wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fair argument. I will agree with you.

How is that a fair argument? It's anti-immigrant BS.

All things being equal, when it's between a native(citizen, green card holder) who got his/her job displaced by an h1b, then our preference is naturally for the former.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#129

Post by jordache » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 1:34 PM UTC

balls187 wrote: post #89

virmundi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. The H1B program should bring the best and brightest to the US due to a lack of skills and or availability in the high skilled areas. Drone work is by definition not high skilled areas. Therefore the H1B folk should not be here. Those jobs would then go to the drone college kids, or to some outsourcing firm. That is the intent of the law.

Good point. The H1B visa people at my office are some of the top performing people in our office in India.

Ok so how do they perform relative to folks in the us?

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#130

Post by virmundi » Thu, Apr 20, 2017, 1:36 PM UTC

aanm1988 wrote: post #124

jordache wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fair argument. I will agree with you.

How is that a fair argument? It's anti-immigrant BS.

I'm actually pro immigration. One of my biggest issues with H1B is the difficulty of a citizenship path. I would prefer to court true H1B holders. I want the US to be the number one country for all the high skilled people of the world.

The current H1B system abuses both native and traveler when cheated.