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

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

#121
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…

Why not just stack rank h1b applicants by salary instead of using a lottery system? That forces the income levels up which should benefit Americans workers as well.

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

#122

Here's an interesting alternative to the current H1B visa. It replaces the lottery with an auction. I imagine this would make companies think twice about hiring "cheap" foreign labor, but then again it might lower the salaries further given the extra burden on the sponsoring company. https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/aafs/2013... .

Posted the wrong link before. https://www.hoover.org/research/auctioning-temporary-visas

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

#123
post #98
post #78

There are 2 sides to every coin. It can be frustrating/demoralizing to American software developers as well, when they go to interview for a job, to see they are competing with an absolute flood of Indian and Chinese H1Bs. Then, when all of your interviewers are Chinese and Indian as well and you don't get the job, you sort of feel like the victim of favoritism and that you've been pushed out of your own country's in…

Is it ridiculous to consider that you fail your interviews because you’re not as good on a global level because some countries have better work ethic than others and better education systems than others even if America considers them to be “lower than”. Adobe and Microsoft CEOs went to the same high school and it wasn’t in the US ;) - jealous American student

Or you may fail at interviews because for you it’ll be conducted in English vs their native language. Not a hypothetical. At least an anecdote. Old colleague casually admitted to this despite company policy.

Also note that most interviews are known to be more extreme than the actual job needs: e.g. leetcode is the interview; random CSS manipulation is the actual job. I wonder how hard would it be to teach a top 15% high schooler in America to do that stuff.

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

#124
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…

Really, we should just enforce the original intent of the H1B. 1. Companies that import labor when they had a perfectly acceptable local candidate should face severe fines, and Justice should be given a real budget for running these investigations as a matter of course. And the burden of proof to demonstrate you needed to import labor should be pretty high. If you don't do this, then H1B abuse will happen. 2. Compani…

Personally, I don't think it matters much. So what if we allow more software engineers from other countries? We haven't done anything special to deserve a job more than they have. My only concerns with it are about their well-being and freedom under the current system.

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

#125
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…

It’s an artifact of colonialism that has been properly abstracted to fit the corporate interface, with a nice layering of cake to obfuscate reality.

I want no part of it.

Actually, no one one wants any part of it. The ones that take part in it are desperate.

I want no part in the desperation, it’s never good.

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

#127

I for one am ecstatic about this. I want less competition for my role, not more. It is hard to compete when the top 5% of every other economy comes in and crowds me out.

Unbelievable how naked the anti-immigrant sentiment from you and numerous other commenters. I'm honestly shocked.

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is also funny is that settled immigrants often have more right-wing views about immigration than people born into that society. This doesn't appear to happen in the US because of the history and the significant levels of illegal immigration today but, where I am, the group most in favour of controls on migration are settled immigrants. It seems very odd to say limiting immigration is white supremacy. The US has…

> What is also funny is that settled immigrants often have more right-wing views about immigration than people born into that society.

> This doesn't appear to happen in the US

Yes, it does. It may happen significantly less in communities where the immigrants, their descendants, and others of their ethnicity are targeted, without selectivity by immigration status, for bigotry, including the highly visible Latino/Latina community (though, even there it still is a recognized and not uncommon phenomenon.)

It definitely happens among White European immigrants.

> It seems very odd to say limiting immigration is white supremacy.

Limiting immigration isn't, inherently, white supremacy.

But the people pushing it hardest in the US are, quite overtly, also pushing White supremacy and courting and excusing White supremacists.

> The US has a huge illegal immigration problem

The United States has had net negative illegal immigration for over decade, and the gross level has been in decline, too. It does not have a “huge illegal immigration problem”. And the illegal immigration problem it does have is in significant part because of stupid features of it's immigration system, like per country caps on top of per category caps, which creates decades long backlogs for legal immigration from countries with large numbers of prospective immigrants meeting individual qualifications, and stupid features of it's domestic policy that intersect with immigration policy, like the war on drugs and the resultant exportation of hardened, long-term US resident gang members to Central America that have contributed to the violence and refugee crises there.

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Whenever business leaders moan about 'shortages', they say "We can't find Americans to do the job" when they mean "We can't find Americans to do the job at the shitty wage we want to pay"

And it's not a race thing, it's a money thing. Hong Kong Chinese don't want paltry wages so they import Filipinos. Lebanese don't want paltry wages so they import Sri Lankans. Even black South Africans don't want paltry wages to they import Zimbabweans.

It's not a race thing, it's a money thing. The U. S. cotton agriculture workers don't want to work for nothing so they import Africans.

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

#130

Beg to differ. H1B's may live the high life in Big Tech, but that is not the experience of most H1Bs. For the rest, it is akin to indentured servitude. They are dramatically underpaid compared to American counterparts and unable to change jobs without losing your place in line for citizenship. I have worked with Indian subcontractors that have waited 20 years! H1B is nothing more than the wealthy using labor arbitrag…

>I have worked with Indian subcontractors that have waited 20 years!

And you think this suspension will help them?

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