Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#301

Post by calvinbhai » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:10 PM UTC

johnnydoebk wrote: post #257

Sorry for a stupid question but I have to ask. Why everyone is so desperate to start a company and locate it physically in the US? Is it just because of VC money? Wouldn't any safe place with good laws and easy immigration policy do? I don't take seriously Blockchain projects (and consider most of them blatant scam) and they are relatively small now. But longterm can this model solve the part about VC money?

Risk appetite of investors and access to such investors matter a lot.

And the US has a few cities with many such investors, which makes it easier to reach many in a short duration.

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#302

Post by calvinbhai » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

suryacom wrote: post #22

Here is the detailed comment by "Immigration Voice" on why the rule is bad for everyone except special interest: "...The new immigrant entrepreneur parole program will create a yet another class of immigrants, albeit minority partners and working resources in the start-up entity, who will be beholden and entirely dependent on the hand-picked venture capital firms to maintain their status in United States in the parol…

Thanks for posting this! I too have many of these reservations about the new rule. Totally agree with that comment by Immigration Voice!

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#303

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

suryacom wrote: post #22

Here is the detailed comment by "Immigration Voice" on why the rule is bad for everyone except special interest: "...The new immigrant entrepreneur parole program will create a yet another class of immigrants, albeit minority partners and working resources in the start-up entity, who will be beholden and entirely dependent on the hand-picked venture capital firms to maintain their status in United States in the parol…

[deleted]

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#304

Post by pcwalton » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #277

pcwalton wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of which are members of the EU and have no plans to pull a Brexit anytime soon (indeed, populism in Europe sputtered quickly and now seems to be on the wane). As examples of the benefits of protectionism/isolationism, Sweden and Denmark are muddled.

Populism in Europe is just getting started. The far right party in the Netherlands gained 8 seats in parliament (to 20) while the leading party lost 7 seats (to 33). It's already had the effect of pushing the mainstream parties to the right even in the face of recent election losses. Both Denmark and Sweden have enacted immigration restrictions in the last year. Perhaps the biggest change is that any chance of a Turk…

> Populism in Europe is just getting started.

I've never seen any observer come to that conclusion lately (other than those with transparent agendas). For an overall take considering all the data, not just one or two data points, consider Nate Silver's: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-making-...

> Perhaps the biggest change is that any chance of a Turkey joining the EU is dead. That seemed like a real possibility 5-8 years ago.

Erdogan's authoritarianism is a bit of a confounding factor here.

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#305

Post by marcell » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:18 PM UTC

Banthum wrote: post #224

marcell wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Within reason, yea pretty much. If we had sane government, I'd be in favor of, say, 10x increases on all types of immigration over the next 10 years. This means hi tech workers, low tech workers, families of current immigrants, amnesty for illegal immigrants, everything. The economy will adapt, and we'll find a way to make use for them. 2. Hopefully (1) does

Okay, I'm not taking the piss - let me ask you an honest question. 10 years of 10x immigration would be 100,000,000 people, so about 11 cities the size of New York of 100% new immigrants. Such masses could not possibly assimilate to any significant degree; they'd obviously form huge enclaves. Presumably you'd want to live amongst them, and you would not preferentially move to a neighborhood of people with your cultur…

At my current job around half the people are immigrants, or children of immigrants. I'm sure company wide it's similar. They don't bite.

When I went to college it was 30% asian, and they didn't bite either. There were brown kids and black kids, and many foreigners.

I don't think what makes America special is country of origin or the appearance of the people who live here. A lot of anti-immigration sentiment has undertones (or overtones) of xenophobia. This is understandable--foreigners are weird and unknown, and some parts of America are 95%+ white with few/no immigrants, or only European immigrants.

> 10 years of 10x immigration would be 100,000,000 people, so about 11 cities the size of New York of 100% new immigrants. Such masses could not possibly assimilate to any significant degree; they'd obviously form huge enclaves.

Ok, maybe 10x is too much, maybe the number should be more like 5x. This would require some sane policy from state and local governments. In the Bay Area, where I live, this would mean substantially increasing housing stock and density. It may mean other things for other localities. Maybe there are limits based on income level. But the target should be, if someone wants to come here and make a better life for themselves, they should be able to.

If someone is willing to leave their country and move to America, we can make it work and it can be a win-win for both sides.

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

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Post by dang » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #289

dang wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments in this thread have unfortunately stepped back into incivility, which you have a long history of doing on HN and we have a long history of warning you about. Fortunately you've mostly fixed this on HN, though not entirely. Please make the adjustments needed to correct this so I don't have to starting pleading with you not to get banned all over again. (Also, please don't feed trolls. The thing to do wit…

I thought I've been being quite civil, but OK, I'll lighten it up some more.

Appreciated!

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#307

Post by dang » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 6:34 PM UTC

Alfredo123 wrote: post #288

dang wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account for ideological trolling. Not what HN is for. Posting like this account has been doing will eventually get your main account banned too, so please don't create accounts to do this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14608078 and marked it off-topic.

I am unable to see any "trolling" in the comment. The comment seems accurate.

It was more than one comment. We judge 'trolling' by its effects. Inflammatory posts on divisive topics provoke flamewars, and that destroys the commons.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...

This doesn't mean you can't comment on divisive topics. It means that as the topic gets more divisive, comments need to become more thoughtful and more substantive, not less.

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#308

Post by omginternets » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 7:06 PM UTC

calvinbhai wrote: post #284

omginternets wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why so much obsession about the country where people were born into? It wasn't their choice at all. It just doesn't matter. Because nationality does matter. The oft-repeated meme that we're all the same doesn't hold to even superficial scrutiny. Nationality is not arbitrary in the sense that it's a crystallization of centuries of cultural values. People's place of birth predicts their attitudes about a vast number o…

Nationality and Country of birth, are two different things. If Elon Musk was born in India or China, and when he was 1 yr old he moved back to South Africa, and rest of his life remained unchanged from what has been, then he'd not be granted a permanent residency as easily and may have just become a US Citizen in the last two years. Can you imagine what loss it would be to the US if Musk had to wait so long to become…

>Nationality and Country of birth, are two different things.

For the purposes of this discussion, it's largely a distinction without a difference.

I don't oppose immigration in principle, but the rather extreme view that any amount of immigration, from any place, to any place is necessarily a Good Thing is founded on some very strange assumptions.

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#309

Post by lazaroclapp » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

xxSparkleSxx wrote: post #186

lazaroclapp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. should be doing their very best to have the strongest possible education system for all its citizens (and non-citizens living in the country long term). As should any reasonable country. But the fact remains that, unless you are counting with excellent execution in that regard from the U.S. and abysmal negligence from the rest of the world, you simply can't extract the same talent from a population of 400 mi…

Are we really extracting from a talent pool of 7 billion? The problems we have in America are the same if not much worse in most of the world (except for Europe, I imagine). What % of children in China and India do not have access to decent education or opportunities? I think it's pretty high. My thought process was inspired by the recent article on the estimated 5 million geniuses in India, most of which will go on…

> Are we really extracting from a talent pool of 7 billion?

No. Or rather we are doing it badly. But we don't do any better if we geographically segregate people who otherwise might want to work together. It is an orthogonal (albeit incredibly important) problem. As I said, all of our countries should be investing more in education, in addition to having humane and sensible immigration policies and a reasonable social safety net. But in any case, there are more skilled people in the whole world right now than in the U.S. alone, by construction...

Re: Trump administration has plan to scrap ‘startup visa’ rule

#310

Post by lazaroclapp » Thu, Jun 22, 2017, 7:35 PM UTC

KGIII wrote: post #171

lazaroclapp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. should be doing their very best to have the strongest possible education system for all its citizens (and non-citizens living in the country long term). As should any reasonable country. But the fact remains that, unless you are counting with excellent execution in that regard from the U.S. and abysmal negligence from the rest of the world, you simply can't extract the same talent from a population of 400 mi…

The complaints that I read are often that they aren't actually jobs that couldn't be fulfilled here, with local talent. There have been many claims of training your replacement. If you're training them, it seems most probable that you're able to do the job. There is only a small subset that seems to just be bigoted. And, yes, they do exist. I am pretty sure they are low in number. Most of the complaints are about thi…

Others are giving better replies to this than I can. I will just note two things:

1) This is a particular case where making immigration difficult to the people involved directly results in less jobs for Americans, as observed above. Yet that's still what is being done. It is clear from it that, for some people, the desire to reduce immigration is not just related to job security. This doesn't mean there aren't legitimate concerns, just that it doesn't seem to me that the explicit legitimate concerns are the only issue here.

2) The particular cohort of H1-B developers I am more familiar with compete with American grads for equal jobs and equal salary/RSUs, and are nobody's 'cheaper replacement'. Now, I am not saying that what you describe doesn't happen. But you know what would help there? Making it easier for people in H1-B's to change employers or even stay unemployed (even on their own money, without benefits) for a few months in the U.S. searching for a job if their employer is exploitative!

There is a sort of issue 2.1. here that I will acknowledge: yes, having more skilled people come in increases supply and lowers prices for labor, slightly. But most of the jobs in question are at companies that target a global market, this means not making use of a global labor pool is both ideologically suspect and a bad long term plan. Talented people in other places will still compete with you, and now you don't even get their taxes or the effect their talent creates in the available job opportunities in your area. If, say, you keep all the Amazon jobs for Americans but end up buying all your stuff from Alibaba the world over, was that a good outcome for you?