Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#31

Post by vidarh »

davidw wrote: post #18
mbesto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the first time I've read a sweeping generalization from yourself based on "personal experience". I have no doubt you have a lot of personal experiences and don't disagree with your viewpoint (in fact my personal experience dictates the same) however, it is still a generalization. You're talking about a cohort that you (and I for that matter) have no formal analysis to back up. I'm American and I've immigra…

> perhaps it's this painful barrier that filters out all of the immigrants who don't create jobs for the US and does identify the people that do. I don't buy it. If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no? The US has fewer painful barriers to creating companies, and a lot of good infrastructure, and so a lot of the world's largest, biggest, most importa…

> I don't buy it. If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no?

You wouldn't expect that, because there are high barriers to starting successful companies there, and few that would want to go there to start companies.

What he is suggesting is that, GIVEN that there's a lot of people that want to move to the US to work or start businesses, it is possible that the barrier to immigrate legally serves as a filter so that those who make it through are people who are more likely than the average of those who would like to immigrate to the US to be successful.

If that is the case, then by increasing immigration, you might not increase the amount of successful businesses nearly as much as you might hope.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#32

Post by jacquesm »

vidarh wrote: post #31
davidw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perhaps it's this painful barrier that filters out all of the immigrants who don't create jobs for the US and does identify the people that do. I don't buy it. If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no? The US has fewer painful barriers to creating companies, and a lot of good infrastructure, and so a lot of the world's largest, biggest, most importa…

> I don't buy it. If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no? You wouldn't expect that, because there are high barriers to starting successful companies there, and few that would want to go there to start companies. What he is suggesting is that, GIVEN that there's a lot of people that want to move to the US to work or start businesses, it is possible t…

But it will go up...

How much to hope for is not really all that important, the fact is that with 0 immigration there are no immigrant founders and with lots of immigration there will be more of them.

Therefore increasing the number of immigrants will lead to a higher number of immigrant founders. Barriers are silly and counterproductive.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#33

Post by jotm »

There's nothing shocking about this - increase the time frame to 20/50/100 years and the numbers will stay more or less the same...

It's just that in the US, you've got favorable laws and culture, existing infrastructure, lots of investors willing to take a risk and a huge market to begin with... it's the perfect starting ground for pretty much any business.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#34

Post by jacquesm »

bdcravens wrote: post #29
jacquesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that was mostly from personal experience.

In my personal experience, designers tend to wear more thick plastic "hipster" style glasses than the general public. Therefore, hipster glasses make you a better designer. I'd submit that it's not about "more to lose", but rather, it's a move of safety. You see a lot of the same businesses operated by the same types of people. Why? Is that group of people in a caste system that requires them to operate that type of…

I think it is much simpler than that. Over and beyond not having a safety net and not having a high aversion to risk once you've immigrated to somewhere assuming you didn't do that to go to work for some specific company you're behind the rest of the pack when it comes to applying for jobs. So immigrants have a strong incentive to found a company, they won't have a gap in their CV if they do, they already have the largest gap possible. Nothing to lose is an excellent position to be in when you're confronted with the choice to start a company or not.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#35

Post by gsnedders »

newbie12 wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #2

That doesn't surprise me in the least. Immigrants have one leg up over the competition: they have generally very little to lose and everything to gain. They have also already self-selected for being people that are not risk adverse (they just left everything behind to start a new life) and they are executing on their dreams. I often see people that rant against immigrants in general and I always wonder how they would…

These entrepreneurs all appear to be legal immigrants. Most of the "ranting" in the U.S. is towards the law-breaking immigrants who now want amnesty. There is a consensus in America in favor of legal immigration, the political fight is over the inability of America to secure its borders and how to assimilate the millions of people who entered the country illegally.

At least as an outsider, I see lots about H-1B visas especially, so to me it seems like legal immigration is fairly controversial too.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#36

Post by maxerickson »

gsnedders wrote: post #35
newbie12 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These entrepreneurs all appear to be legal immigrants. Most of the "ranting" in the U.S. is towards the law-breaking immigrants who now want amnesty. There is a consensus in America in favor of legal immigration, the political fight is over the inability of America to secure its borders and how to assimilate the millions of people who entered the country illegally.

At least as an outsider, I see lots about H-1B visas especially, so to me it seems like legal immigration is fairly controversial too.

H-1B is specifically not an immigration visa. I realize I'm being somewhat pedantic, but the nominal purpose of the program is to provide specialists to constrained labor markets on a temporary basis.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#37

Post by NTDF »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

That doesn't surprise me in the least. Immigrants have one leg up over the competition: they have generally very little to lose and everything to gain. They have also already self-selected for being people that are not risk adverse (they just left everything behind to start a new life) and they are executing on their dreams. I often see people that rant against immigrants in general and I always wonder how they would…

This is objectively not true.

Immigrants have plenty to lose. Take my own example. Living in America for a few years (first as a graduate student and then as a software developer), I have made strong connections and a social life here. I lose everything if I don't make it.

There are two big problems for immigrants:

The Green Card process takes ~10 years. Imagine staying put in one company for 10 years. The legal immigration system is so haplessly broken that if I lose my job (say, late in the GC process), I get kicked out. My wife can't work. I cannot have kids without them confusing nationalities. I cannot buy a house. Immigrants are living on a thin strand, sacrificing a lot.

Motivated immigrants, who wish to start a company, cannot do so either because there are no visas to do so easily. Until we get a Green Card, we cannot quit our jobs and go on a road trip of the US, like my colleagues do. Realize that there is an opportunity cost, a small window, in which we all are highly motivated to start something. We immigrants typically waste that window in simply waiting for the Green Card to arrive (all-the-while, hoping we don't get laid-off).

The loss of this opportunity is one of the biggest reasons why many choose to head back to their own countries to start companies.

In summary, Immigrants have A LOT to lose. Grass is not green on this side either.

Source: Me. An Immigrant working in SV who's not allowed to start a company because of the ridiculous immigration system.

Re: A third of venture-backed IPOs between 2006 and 2012 had an immigrant founder

#39

Post by presty »

netcan wrote: post #12
jacquesm wrote: post #2

That doesn't surprise me in the least. Immigrants have one leg up over the competition: they have generally very little to lose and everything to gain. They have also already self-selected for being people that are not risk adverse (they just left everything behind to start a new life) and they are executing on their dreams. I often see people that rant against immigrants in general and I always wonder how they would…

I think there are some close cousins of "nothing to lose" that are at work too. As an immigrant your out of your own system and its expectations. Say you come from a background where your reference group mostly follows a path of: go to high school, go to 3 year Uni, travel for a year, then either start climbing corporate ladders or more Uni, etc. Obviously, not everyone follows the exact same path, but there is a lot…

just a note: you mean Berklee, not Berkley (2 different schools)
Post reply on HN