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The Founder Visa

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Founder Visa

#131

Post by pg »

veteran wrote: post #118

Is it incidental that except for one or two guys in essay review are all people who are small investors who don't have ability to open investment shop in India/China?.. May be 20 yrs back this was relevant but today just because you offer does not mean quality people need it..so before proposing was there actually needs analysis..did somebody read the Chinese social networks are ahead in revenue numbers and there is…

I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that would-be founders should stay in their home countries and start their startups there?

If so, then the answer is that it depends on the country and the nature of the startup. There are certainly some combinations of country/startup where the founders would be better off in Silicon Valley. It's up to the individual founders to decide if theirs is.

Re: The Founder Visa

#132

Post by pg »

psranga wrote: post #125
pg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a worry. It would have to be super transparent. Originally I proposed a straightforward algorithm for deciding: to use Erdos numbers with Ron Conway as the seed. I took this out because I thought it was better not to go into this level of detail in the essay, but I'd advocate using something like this to decide who was a startup investor.

You rank applicants to the visa program by Erdos numbers? Is this the same Erdos number as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number ? Or do you rank investors? In either case, you're ranking people based on WHO they know, not what they know. Worst kind of ranking possible (it keeps competent outsiders out).

It's the investors who'd be ranked by Ronco numbers, not the visa applicants. And even there it wouldn't be based on anyone knowing anyone. If you invest in a startup that Ron Conway later invests in, you have a Ronco number of 1, whether he likes it or not.

Re: The Founder Visa

#133

Post by [deleted] »

psranga wrote: post #125
pg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a worry. It would have to be super transparent. Originally I proposed a straightforward algorithm for deciding: to use Erdos numbers with Ron Conway as the seed. I took this out because I thought it was better not to go into this level of detail in the essay, but I'd advocate using something like this to decide who was a startup investor.

You rank applicants to the visa program by Erdos numbers? Is this the same Erdos number as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number ? Or do you rank investors? In either case, you're ranking people based on WHO they know, not what they know. Worst kind of ranking possible (it keeps competent outsiders out).

[deleted]

Re: The Founder Visa

#134

Post by tlb »

bokonist wrote: post #92
pg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suggesting accreditation be decided by the investors themselves, not the government. Works fairly well for universities.

Visas are issued by the government. All my criticisms still apply, even if the government delegates the decision to the investors. And no, it works terribly for universities ( or rather, it works great for the universities, terribly for the public). For example, the number of medical schools in the country has actual gone from 162 in 1906, to 129 today, despite a three-fold increase in population. The artificial barr…

Bar associations are very different from college accreditation boards. Bar associations are a guild whose main goal is to restrict supply by making it hard to become a lawyer. (Even still, the US has far more lawyers than it needs.) They exist pretty explicitly to keep legal salaries high.

Accreditation for colleges is much more, well, collegial. There's no big motivation to restrict supply. It's hard to think of any really good educational institutions that can't seem to get accredited for political reasons. The list of over 1000 accredited colleges in CA starts off:

* A-Technical College (LA)

* ABC Adult School (Cerritos)

* Abram Friedman Occupational Center (LA)

* Absolute Safety Training Paramedic Program (Oroville)

* Academy Education Services (Oxnard)

so it's not just the Stanfords that can manage accreditation.

Re: The Founder Visa

#135

Post by endtime »

catz wrote: post #109
endtime wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 you don't have anything interesting to say, don't say anything."

Re: The Founder Visa

#136

Post by rdouble »

tlb wrote: post #134
bokonist wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visas are issued by the government. All my criticisms still apply, even if the government delegates the decision to the investors. And no, it works terribly for universities ( or rather, it works great for the universities, terribly for the public). For example, the number of medical schools in the country has actual gone from 162 in 1906, to 129 today, despite a three-fold increase in population. The artificial barr…

Bar associations are very different from college accreditation boards. Bar associations are a guild whose main goal is to restrict supply by making it hard to become a lawyer. (Even still, the US has far more lawyers than it needs.) They exist pretty explicitly to keep legal salaries high. Accreditation for colleges is much more, well, collegial. There's no big motivation to restrict supply. It's hard to think of any…

Rather than petitioning congress for a new visa, perhaps it's easier to start a school and have founders come over on an F-1.

Re: The Founder Visa

#137

Post by shiro »

nickpp wrote: post #129

A VISA?! Are you f..ing kidding me? Do you know what a fragile status one has while on a VISA? Any day you your visa can be revoked and you can be thrown out. Do you expect me to risk everything, to pour my life and blood into a business while under the stress that if anything goes wrong I am on a plane with a one-way ticket to a place where I have nothing anymore, together with my family and away for any of my frien…

I've worked on visa for several years, so I know it's like putting your life at the mercy of USCIS. I got enough stress until I got a GC. But there are already people who are willing to risk that, so it is one step forward for those people and for US economy. And it is where pg stands, so at least it's consistent; you shouldn't be surprised.

Of course there are different views. For other countries who wants to compete Silicon Valley, it is bad. For those who concern rights of visa workers, more visas may only make problems worse. You can stands there and discuss those disadvantages logically, but you don't need to burst emotional responses---it won't help changing opinions of the other side.

BTW, I think this visa plan is only an initial step and clear path to a Green Card should be shown as the next step. After September 2001, it seems that employment-based Green Card processing is taking longer and longer. Some of my friends are waiting 5-6 years already. There's not much point if those who has built successful business have to stay on non-immigrant visa status.

Re: The Founder Visa

#138

Post by JabavuAdams »

bokonist wrote: post #89
pg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a worry. It would have to be super transparent. Originally I proposed a straightforward algorithm for deciding: to use Erdos numbers with Ron Conway as the seed. I took this out because I thought it was better not to go into this level of detail in the essay, but I'd advocate using something like this to decide who was a startup investor.

The point is you don't get to control the algorithm. When I interned in the Massachusetts State House, I sat through a meeting discussing the algorithm that decides how much state money each local school district receives. Now I'm sure you or I could come up with a quite elegant algorithm. But the actual algorithm was a complex beast that no staffer at the meeting could begin to understand. It was the evolved product…

Thanks for this. Your reply reminds me of a thread I read on the arocket list, discussing the rationale behind the new Ares program.

The most interesting thing about it, to me, was that the engineers from the private sector just couldn't seem to understand the political constraints that the government managers work under.

I've only ever worked at small to medium-sized private-sector software companies. It's fascinating to get a look into public institutions and the way civil-servants make decisions.

As a hacker, there's a real danger of only considering engineering constraints, and dismissing organizational or political constraints on a problem or program. I often see bright techies make suggestions that are just naive from a political or organizational perspective. Suggesting a plan that would work great "if only the government weren't so clueless or corrupt" is no plan at all, if you actually have to work with the government.

This is not a direct criticism of pg's essay. I think he's on to a cool idea.

The discussions I've had on similar topics in the past, though, have been really eye-opening. I may be hot-shit technically, and able to hold my own in a meeting, but there's this whole other world of bureaucracy that I must admit I know almost nothing about.

P.S. I found the NIH parts of Darwin's Radio fascinating. The book doesn't have much action. In fact, a lot of the character interaction is between government scientists, and happens in meetings. Nonetheless, I felt as though it gave me an insight into this other world. It was fascinating.

Re: The Founder Visa

#139

Post by bokonist »

tlb wrote: post #134
bokonist wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visas are issued by the government. All my criticisms still apply, even if the government delegates the decision to the investors. And no, it works terribly for universities ( or rather, it works great for the universities, terribly for the public). For example, the number of medical schools in the country has actual gone from 162 in 1906, to 129 today, despite a three-fold increase in population. The artificial barr…

Bar associations are very different from college accreditation boards. Bar associations are a guild whose main goal is to restrict supply by making it hard to become a lawyer. (Even still, the US has far more lawyers than it needs.) They exist pretty explicitly to keep legal salaries high. Accreditation for colleges is much more, well, collegial. There's no big motivation to restrict supply. It's hard to think of any…

Accreditation for less established and less lucrative professions is much easier. The grip tightens over time, within a profession.

It's hard to think of any really good educational institutions that can't seem to get accredited for political reasons.

Three years of on the job training is better education than three years of schooling in practically every field. Plus you get paid rather than have to pay. Yet on the job training does not count as education that allows you to legally be a lawyer, doctor, teacher, parole officer, military officer, etc.

The problem with government sanctioned accreditation is not that the specific decisions about which schools meet the requirements get politicized. The problem is that accreditation allows the intuitions who reap the tuition money to define what education itself means.

Re: The Founder Visa

#140

Post by catz »

endtime wrote: post #135
catz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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 you don't have anything interesting to say, don't say anything."

Whether or not you feel what I said was interesting or relevant is completely up to you.

I will just mention that for the parent post, at least 20 people found it interesting or to the point (since it has a moderation of 21).

In any case, it is still more on topic point (emigration visas) than your discussion about my post.

EDIT: I find your posts a little bit harsh. Why not tone it down to at least leave a semblance of civility? (This is after all not Digg or Reddit).

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