Hey, sam, great idea... how about you ask the US to give these 100 visas to ANOTHER firm first, if you really believe it. Otherwise, you sound like a selfish douche.
The Founder Visa (again)
51–60 of 198 posts
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#52I am pretty sure there are already mechanisms for the rich to buy US citizenship. EB-5. Secure funding for your start-up, boom you're a US citizen as soon as you invest in jobs, etc. in the US. The rich have their ways. What if YC selected ~100 projects per year, gave each their $500k so they could buy their way in...
I doubt that is financially sustainable in any sense for YC, though.
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#53I have a counter-proposal: Paul Graham and others have described Y Combinator as large; many US-based entrepreneurs described San Francisco as far and a handful of comments here point out how concentration in one city is hurting everyone.
Why not start a Y Combinator in Europe and in Asia?
Yes, that would require flight tickets to visit from organisations, but that would also allow a better access to incredible initiatives (that keep yelling in unheard comments that Silicon Vally is neglecting them) such as London’s Start-up Roundabout, Paris’ The Family and certainly far more in Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. I can’t imagine Singapour, Beijing and Hong-Kong and GuandDong have any less merits, certainly with hardware, or less things to learn from Y Combinator.
What both need is access to capital and access to expertise on how to make that kind of deals; what Y Combinator provides is a needed discipline about testing and scaling, and that. Both travel far better than the founders, who are best because of their network of skilled friends, understanding of local markets and more. Yes, it might require a standard contract to make European or Chinese company have a finance subsidiary in the US to reassure US investors… but dealing with that kind of complication is what YC is good at, much better than any local equivalent.
I would hate to see YC come and unify how to make start-ups. Diversity is key, certainly in something as creative as making companies happen. I was kind of relieved when I noticed no one wrote that idea. But also disappointed: it would be in YC spectacular interest to try.
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#54The Obama administration has said that something like a founder visa will happen, but only as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#55They did make it easier to get an H1B visa as an entrepreneur: http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/entrepreneur-visa-guide I'm not sure if anyone's ever successfully received one, however. More here: http://www.murthy.com/2012/12/17/entrepreneur-h1b-petitions-...
That USCIS guide is strange... it lists H1B only under "Nonimmigrant Visas" even though the H1B is dual-intent.
The H1B is a nonimmigrant visa. All dual intent means is that it doesn't violate the terms of entry if you also intend to pursue permanent residence at the same time -- but the H1B itself does not lead to permanent residence.
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#56The part of this that really worries me is that would-be founders, after making their pitch, are now waiting to find out if the investors have bestowed the right to live and work in the US upon them. I understand that it is complicated. The US only takes about 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year, and because of our emphasis on family reunification, this means that startup founders may not get o…
It shouldn't be the only way to get a (nonimmigrant in this proposal, incidentally) visa. But I really do believe it should be one way--it's hard to argue that more startups would hurt the economy. I agree with you that there is a level of discomfort inherent in letting investors influence who gets visas, but honestly they know more about what startups have a chance at great success than government officers.
Is there any way to use the existing EB-5 Immigrant Investor visa?
http://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-workers...
As far as I know, to qualify for an EB-5 you need to invest at least US$1M and create 10 jobs within 2 years.
It might be a dumb idea, but could investors invest in an entity owned by a foreign founder, who would turn around and repatriate the investment in a US "new commercial entity", and qualify for an EB-5?
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#57This is a terrible idea. VCs have proposed the same solution in Canada; the government canned the old investor visa and allowed founders to get a startup when they receive investment from some of our VCs. (There were many more investor visa than VCs can even process. We'll end up with less total job creation. You have to be careful what you lobby for, and how it will be implemented!) What was once a process over whic…
Down-voters: explain, please? You don't think the experience from this type of policy being tried somewhere else is relevant? That it won't backfire?
Also from the HN guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Asking people to explain downvotes is really a form of complaining about downvoting. People routinely downvote when they disagree.
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#58The part of this that really worries me is that would-be founders, after making their pitch, are now waiting to find out if the investors have bestowed the right to live and work in the US upon them. I understand that it is complicated. The US only takes about 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year, and because of our emphasis on family reunification, this means that startup founders may not get o…
Yeah, that's absolutely the concern with this kind of approach. While I am confident in the good intentions of YCombinator, you can't do a program just for one incubator, and then you have to select them, and some bad ones would get in who'd exploit the situation. We need startup visas, but it can't be at the behest of investors.
> While I am confident in the good intentions of YCombinator
I'm not. YC is already operating in a club of privilege, surrounded by a bubble of questionable intentions and inflated valuations that externalize the costs onto the wider economy.
Now we should grant YC (and maybe "other investment firms") a privilege that bootstrapped companies like our own can never get? We've lost the H1-B lottery multiple years running.
I can guarantee that the high wages we pay for decades will go a lot farther than the flash-in-pan founder visas and the occasional success that puts more money in the pockets of a few.
Sending YC more grist for their mill isn't to the benefit of the American people, just YC.
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#59[deleted]
Re: The Founder Visa (again)
#60Some points on my mind: a) Most adventurous student entrepreneurs don't really MUST need a founder visa, they can use OPT. I think founders of Stripe did that. b) Most non-immigrants already working (mostly with H1 visa) needs a founder visa. To work on a startup you founded in H1b visa is hard, consider H1b visa needs some funding/salary requirement on your startup, and that is hard to get by on the early stage of a…
> a) Most adventurous student entrepreneurs don't really MUST need a founder visa, they can use OPT. I think founders of Stripe did that. OPT is an extension of the F1 student visa, and only lasts for 12 months (29 with the STEM extension). In addition, it's a "non-immigration visa", which means that you can't apply for a green card with it (in fact, the whole idea of the visa is that you go back to your own country…
I'm fairly certain you can just apply for a new F1 visa?