Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#31

Post by evgen » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #7

gbronner wrote: post #5

H1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them. Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured servants. They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for it. Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which isn't great for anyone. Hopefully t…

The "without chaining it to a specific company" is critical. When the employee is chained to a company, the company has every incentive to lie then treat the employee poorly. When the employee is not chained to the company, the company has incentives to tell the truth then treat the employee well.

Unfortunately the reality is that there is absolutely no one who is interested in pushing a visa scheme like this. Employers are not interested in going through effort and paperwork for an employee who can jump ship for a better offer down the street once they are in the country. Other employees are not interested in increasing the supply of similar labor that will drive down their market value.

The only ones who are interested in a visa like this would be foreign-born skilled workers looking to immigrate, and they are going to lose the fight over who gets the visas with people who have no specific skills but family in country since that family can vote.

There is no constituency for such a visa, so it is never going to happen.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#32

Post by etrabroline » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

pentae wrote: post #18

qppo wrote: post #16

The largest H1-B visa sponsors are Cognizant, Tata, Wipro, Infosys, and Deloitte. None of those scream "innovation" to me. The system absolutely needs reform, and I think most people can agree with that. But that said, blanket bans on immigration by the white supremacists and nationalists currently running our government and deciding our immigration are probably not designed to help America or innovation either. The…

I wasn't aware that our government was currently being run by white supremacists. Do you have a source?

Many foreigners seeking to immigrate to the US see anything short of total open boarders as white supremacy. Americans caring about, protecting and developing our own workforce is the great evil of our day.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#33

Post by padiyar83 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

gbronner wrote: post #5

H1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them. Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured servants. They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for it. Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which isn't great for anyone. Hopefully t…

This will fuel the "remote anywhere" trend that's already underway. If a H1b engineer in US suppresses wage growth, wait until the same engineer can do the work for 1/3rd the cost from his own country, especially when everyone in the team is remote.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#34

Post by slowmotiony » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

akuchling wrote: post #30

pentae wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware that our government was currently being run by white supremacists. Do you have a source?

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/783047584/leaked-emails-fuel-... "For almost three decades, Jared Taylor has been publishing his ideas about race at the American Renaissance magazine and now at a website called AmRen, which is considered a mouthpiece for white supremacist ideology. ... The website is not well-known outside white nationalist circles — but it found an audience in White House adviser Stephen Miller."

So Stephen Miller is a white supremacist now? He must be hiding it pretty well, since I've heard through hundreds of hours of his podcast with Raheem Kasam and he has never said anything remotely racist.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#35

Post by thatfrenchguy » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

gbronner wrote: post #5

H1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them. Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured servants. They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for it. Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which isn't great for anyone. Hopefully t…

Most companies play the game and apply for your green-card right away though.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#36

Post by dclowd9901 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #31

btilly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "without chaining it to a specific company" is critical. When the employee is chained to a company, the company has every incentive to lie then treat the employee poorly. When the employee is not chained to the company, the company has incentives to tell the truth then treat the employee well.

Unfortunately the reality is that there is absolutely no one who is interested in pushing a visa scheme like this. Employers are not interested in going through effort and paperwork for an employee who can jump ship for a better offer down the street once they are in the country. Other employees are not interested in increasing the supply of similar labor that will drive down their market value. The only ones who are…

They would be if the employee was genuinely worth the hassle. Plus you can imagine most companies would put someone on a contractual basis if the “chaining” wasn’t implicitly part of the visa, which may, in itself, render such an idea moot.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#37

Post by throwmehaweh » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #13

andrenotgiant wrote: post #3

My news and social media feeds are almost universally negative about this. Who is happy about H1B Visa suspension? Who was advocating for it?

> Who is happy about H1B Visa suspension? Who was advocating for it? Mostly, hard-right Republicans have been advocating for it, but I suspect a lot of labor (who has been raging against H-1B for a while) is happy with the policy of suspending H-1B visas, though quite dissatisfied with the politics, which is why you want hear any public support from them on it. (I favor abolition of H-1B as part of wider immigration…

which part is bad policy? that part where the US is in the midst of it's worst economic recession in modern history, with record unemployment across the board, and so they want to pause foreign worker programs to allow a larger pool for US workers?

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#38

Post by president » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

While Andrew Ng is devastated that an H1B worker and their family has to pack their bags and return to their home country, one American worker will have the opportunity to enter the job market and feed his/her family.

EDIT: Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where many engineers on HN are H1B workers themselves or start-up owners/affiliates who benefit and profit off of H1B workers so it's obvious that I'm against the tide here. For all the haters, tell me why my company needed to hire a large group of QA engineers to do manual GUI testing when this does not really require much more than a high school GED, if even. Honestly, look deeply past the corporate lobbyist agendas and your own personal biases and tell me H1B policies are not effectively a ploy to get around cheap labor. Yes, they are great when used properly to find rare and top talent but anybody who has worked in the industry knows this is rarely the case.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#39

Post by dclowd9901 » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

padiyar83 wrote: post #33

gbronner wrote: post #5

H1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them. Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured servants. They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for it. Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which isn't great for anyone. Hopefully t…

This will fuel the "remote anywhere" trend that's already underway. If a H1b engineer in US suppresses wage growth, wait until the same engineer can do the work for 1/3rd the cost from his own country, especially when everyone in the team is remote.

You say this like it’s that easy. We have remotes working in Singapore and Australia, and it is a far cry from “easy” to work with these people either due to timing constraints, language barriers or other aspects that disrupt fluid communication.

Re: Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

#40

Post by tomp » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #26

btilly wrote: post #6

H1B visas provide employers every incentive to lie to import cheap talent and work them hard. There are ways to meet the very real need to import the best brains from around the world. But H1B isn't set up to do this very effectively. Off the top of my head, a better option would be to allow immigration with a $60k bond to the government that has to be paid down at $1k/month by the current employer. With the employee…

What would a bond accomplish? It seems easily gamed by say an insurance company that would pay the bond for premiums.

The employee would need to be skilled enough, to generate enough excess value, to make it worth it for everyone (the employee, the company, ...) over hiring a local worker.