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The Founder Visa

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Founder Visa

#101

Post by mooted »

catz wrote: post #60

There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have…

On the other hand, if the restrictions doesnt exists: (1),(2)Employees can quit anytime for a better paid offer , effectively nullifying the value of efforts and investments the original employer made on the individual. (3)Huge inflow of foreigners will hurt US citizens.

If a foreigner is ready to accept a job with a company offering him a lower salary,it depicts that just he want to get into US somehow.

Re: The Founder Visa

#102

Post by fauigerzigerk »

mhb wrote: post #48

This idea is a special case of Gary Becker's proposal to sell the right to immigrate ( http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/02/sell_the_... ). In this special case, the investors in the immigrant's business would pay the immigration fee. I don't see why the potential benefit to the US of immigrants with startup ideas is necessarily greater than immigrants of similar technical skills with no stated intentio…

So the first thing all immigrants learn is that you're taxed for absolutely nothing in return. Paying a tax to be allowed to pay taxes. Thank you very much :)

Re: The Founder Visa

#103

Post by fauigerzigerk »

erlanger wrote: post #36

Sorry, but I don't think that this makes much sense. INS already has their hands full, and it wouldn't be much fun for them to have to check up on thousands of startup founders to be sure that they're in fact running their business (1) viably, and (2) according to their agreed business plan. The system would be unbelievably easy to cheat. It also would be stupid easy to turn a "startup" into a money laundering scheme…

It's a matter of cost versus benefit, right? If the US is able to attract successful startups the additional cost will be more than made up for in additional taxes.

Second, pg's proposal seems to be a more targeted version the of E-1/2 visa with the additional benefit of shifting some of the administrative burden onto the shoulders of investors. So it's probably less work for the INS than the existing E-1/2 process.

Sounds like a pretty good deal for the US tax payer.

Re: The Founder Visa

#104

Post by albertcardona »

What I find fascinating of the idea is the multiple win-win:

1) The USA benefits: more companies that pay taxes and pay for services, and create jobs for americans.

2) The founders benefit: they get a chance to bring their ideas to fruition, and get rich.

3) Paul Graham benefits: improved competition in the startup world would bring better founder teams to Y-Combinator.

4) The general public benefits: good ideas get implemented and are available as services that improve, in some way, your life.

Re: The Founder Visa

#105

Post by jibiki »

mooted wrote: post #101
catz wrote: post #60

There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have…

On the other hand, if the restrictions doesnt exists: (1),(2)Employees can quit anytime for a better paid offer , effectively nullifying the value of efforts and investments the original employer made on the individual. (3)Huge inflow of foreigners will hurt US citizens. If a foreigner is ready to accept a job with a company offering him a lower salary,it depicts that just he want to get into US somehow.

> Employees can quit anytime for a better paid offer , effectively nullifying the value of efforts and investments the original employer made on the individual.

I don't get your point, are you saying this is a bad thing?

Re: The Founder Visa

#106

Post by fauigerzigerk »

danbmil99 wrote: post #81

Is there really a lack of people in the USA today who want to start companies? It might be a zero-sum game -- X dollars available for startups; if you let in a bunch of people, the startup dollars will go there rather than to people already here.

The zero-sum-game fallacy is at the heart of every single immigration debate I have ever followed. The size of X depends primarily on expected returns. That's how investing works. So if you assume that X is constant for any particular country, you're implying that returns are independent of how many good founders are available. I think that's not a reasonable assumption to make.

Re: The Founder Visa

#107

Post by catz »

iamelgringo wrote: post #86
catz wrote: post #60

There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have…

Downvote for the "Mexicans" reference. Perhaps saying, "There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Would 1 million engineers and scientists be a bad thing?" And, 1 million engineers and scientists would depress salaries in the US. That's a plus for founders, but a minus for engineers and scientists trying to find work. I'm almost always on the side of greater immigration into this country, but…

> Downvote for the "Mexicans" reference. Perhaps saying, "There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Would 1 million engineers and scientists be a bad thing?"

Saying there are over 5 million Mexicans in the USA is a completely factual statement. It is true that you have much higher immigration (both legal and illegal) from neighbouring countries than parts of the rest of the world.

> And, 1 million engineers and scientists would depress salaries in the US.

Maybe. But either companies move to where the engineers are (outsourcing, new companies) or the engineers move to where the companies are. In the latter case they still pay tax for the US.

And American engineers will have a depressed salary in any case.

Re: The Founder Visa

#108

Post by catz »

andreyf wrote: post #77
catz wrote: post #60

There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have…

This might be a strictly American "politically correct" interpretation, but I think your last sentence assumes that being Mexican and being an engineer is exclusive, which it obviously isn't.

> but I think your last sentence assumes that being Mexican and being an engineer is exclusive, which it obviously isn't.

No it doesn't. I am sure that there are Mexicans from the whole spectrum of the population (doctors, engineers, manual labourers, etc...).

With highly skilled visas you can assure that you only get immigrants from a certain section of the population (Engineers).

Re: The Founder Visa

#109

Post by catz »

endtime wrote: post #91
catz wrote: post #60

There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have…

How are H1B visas an alternative? I don't see any reason to believe that if H1Bs were less restrictive then we'd see H1B holders leaving their jobs to create startups. You obviously have personal feelings about the H1B, and I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you, but it really has nothing to do with the idea of a founder's visa. Comments of the form "the article is loosely related to one of my pet issues, so I…

> How are H1B visas an alternative? I don't see any reason to believe that if H1Bs were less restrictive then we'd see H1B holders leaving their jobs to create start-ups.

A lot of people start startups while they are working. This simply makes sense, because getting capital for a start-up is fairly difficult.

A lot of people also try a startup and if it fails, re-enter the job market (after 6 months for example) and start again when they get a new idea.

A general visa that would allow a person to move from employment to starting his own company back to employment would be much more useful than just allowing people to either work or only have a founder's visa.

Also, how many start-ups where founded when a group of employees broke away from an employer and started their own thing? Neither a founders visa or H1B would make provision for such a situation.

> Comments of the form "the article is loosely related to one of my pet issues, so I'm going to say my schpiel" are not interesting.

That may be true. But I see little use in commenting on something that is not relation to any issue that I am interested in. If the comment is out of line then that is what the moderation is for (either flag it or downmod it then).

Re: The Founder Visa

#110

Post by Aegean »

I think the Founders Visa idea totally reflects the American freedom spirit and it must be definitely tried.

I am currently holding a Highly Skilled Migrant Visa from the UK, and this was the only way I could start a startup there. After the visa was available, I quit my job and started my own business. I think with this visa, UK already went ahead of U.S. in this respect.

I agree that in order to reduce competition with American citizens, the Founders Visa may be limited to working in your own company. Founders don't want to be employed (I strictly don't - even was gonna refuse Google if they made an offer) and new companies create job openings. A Visa of this kind would be totally adequate for someone like me.

I didn't like the "Let investors choose" criteria. What if I am self-funded? If I bring my funds in, isn't that even better? Also it is highly subjective whether a founder is going to be successful or not. I think the election strategy should be based on founder's age, education, past earnings, work experience etc. just like in the UK scheme: http://www.workpermit.com/uk/hsmp_calculator.htm

Yes this is not the best criteria to select successful founders, but at least it is a "secure" criteria, i.e. you choose people elite enough that they won't hurt U.S economy. You could start with a "science/business graduate founders" scheme, and extend it based on success.

My last words go to Europe. Europe is living in the past. I wanted to attend FOSDEM in Belgium, was requested so many difficult documentation for Visa, that I decided not to go. I will probably never go to Belgium or similar countries, not because I hate them, but because its simply not worth the effort to visit those countries.

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