Immigration is about talent, not costs • Hacker News Board

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#61

Post by gnufied » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

lmg643 wrote: post #17

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #2

For "real" technology companies like AeroFS, that use a small fraction of the H-1B quota, it's about talent. For body shops like Infosys, WiPro, Tata, etc that use up the vast majority of the H-1B visas it's absolutely about cost.

Agreed. It's strange to read these kinds of articles. The author doesn't seem to realize that he is describing his own personal preferences, and not anything about society at large. All you need to do is look at the top recipients of visas and you will understand what the game is.

I think by and large most engineers understand what the game is and where most H1Bs are going.

What author seems to be saying is - status-quo is not a solution. Is there a shortage of good engineering talent(I am not talking about bottom 50%), but top 20%? I think answer is emphatically yes - worldwide.

Has US benefited from those top 20% who have managed to migrate to US? It would be foolish to say no.

Lastly, this is on official company blog. It is not politically correct to publicly lambast companies which are abusing visa system. But that does not make Author's argument weaker.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#62

Post by cryoshon » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

starfishjenga wrote: post #14

If this guy is starved for talent couldn't he just increase what he's willing to pay and steal people from other tech companies? (There are a number of people who would be willing to jump ship for the right #s I'm sure.) This seems to be where BusinessWeek is correct. At the end of the day engineers should be getting paid more.

Exactly.

They complain about a lack of talent, but really they're complaining about the high price of talent and the difficulty of enticing strong talent.

If they're not willing to pay enough to entice someone reputable to switch, they figure that a political solution is cheaper.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#63

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:25 PM UTC

bradleybuda wrote: post #43

bokonist wrote: post #12

Seems like the sensible solution would be to auction off the immigration quota slots. Decide on some number of business/talent based visas to be issued each year. Then do a rolling auction of the visas. If a person gets a visa, comes to America, but then does not like their job and goes home, the company gets a prorated refund. If the person stays more than five years, they get a green card automatically and are free…

The unstated premise behind your comment, and indeed this entire debate, is that there is only so much "room" for immigration in the US. This leads us to arguments about how large the quota should be, how it should be divided, etc. This is a flawed assumption. The US has nearly unlimited room to accept immigration, and on average every single immigrant we accept would increase the size of our economy. Immigrants are…

[deleted]

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#64

Post by davidw » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:25 PM UTC

bradleybuda wrote: post #43

bokonist wrote: post #12

Seems like the sensible solution would be to auction off the immigration quota slots. Decide on some number of business/talent based visas to be issued each year. Then do a rolling auction of the visas. If a person gets a visa, comes to America, but then does not like their job and goes home, the company gets a prorated refund. If the person stays more than five years, they get a green card automatically and are free…

The unstated premise behind your comment, and indeed this entire debate, is that there is only so much "room" for immigration in the US. This leads us to arguments about how large the quota should be, how it should be divided, etc. This is a flawed assumption. The US has nearly unlimited room to accept immigration, and on average every single immigrant we accept would increase the size of our economy. Immigrants are…

Yes, see: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.it/2014/06/the-optimal-number-...

But this is all politics, and as such it should probably be flagged.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#65

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:25 PM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #2

For "real" technology companies like AeroFS, that use a small fraction of the H-1B quota, it's about talent. For body shops like Infosys, WiPro, Tata, etc that use up the vast majority of the H-1B visas it's absolutely about cost.

Yuri is wrong. h1b is absolutely about costs -- unless they claim (a somewhat fantastical claim) there is nobody in the US at all who could fit their needs. A claim which is trivially untrue. Those people exist and could be hired. Why isn't Yuri hiring them? Because of the price they demand.

In fact, the way you can tell this is bs and it is entirely about price is AeroFS opened a canadian subsidiary! I wonder how much that cost. At a guess, $30k? So apparently $30k is less than the premium required to pry engineers out of dropbox or box.

Or god forbid, train someone.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#66

Post by UK-AL » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:25 PM UTC

teacup50 wrote: post #24

tmorton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pricing a scarce resource doesn't "screw over" anyone.

Pricing an artificially scarce resource does .

Its going to be a scare resource regardless of bidding. At least bidding will allocate to some correlation to real need since people pay more for critical skills.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#67

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #65

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #2

For "real" technology companies like AeroFS, that use a small fraction of the H-1B quota, it's about talent. For body shops like Infosys, WiPro, Tata, etc that use up the vast majority of the H-1B visas it's absolutely about cost.

Yuri is wrong. h1b is absolutely about costs -- unless they claim (a somewhat fantastical claim) there is nobody in the US at all who could fit their needs. A claim which is trivially untrue. Those people exist and could be hired. Why isn't Yuri hiring them? Because of the price they demand. In fact, the way you can tell this is bs and it is entirely about price is AeroFS opened a canadian subsidiary! I wonder how mu…

That depends. If they need someone they can abuse with the threat of deportation...

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#68

Post by pm90 » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:28 PM UTC

trurl wrote: post #58

ethbro wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems fair enough. However, this would also mean that startups would likely find it impossible to earn H1-B's in competitive fields, as a fair amount of the compensation is future-loaded. Or, to put it another way: who's going to win a bidding war for Employee X, Microsoft or {Startup Working to Become Microsoft}?

Maybe there is something I'm missing due to having little knowledge about all the legal subtitles. It seems like startups could come out ahead by realizing that in the modern world, there is no reason for a talented developer to be on-site 365 days of the year. They could save money by not getting on getting an H1B by having the developer work remotely and only need to obtain more limited visas for occasional on-site…

Im afraid that is a different debate on remote v/s local. There are both advantages and disadvantages to either. In this specific case, it is quite clear they really wanted their team to be together (i.e. on site) and went to extraordinary length to do that.

BTW there are few visa's (if any) for "limited" or occasional visits to the US.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#69

Post by bdamm » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:28 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #56

mavelikara wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along similar lines, the cost of sponsoring H-1Bs should grow exponentially with the fraction of the company's workforce that is on H-1B, beyond a small threshold.

I like this idea. It allows for the super-talented to succeed across international lines while preventing cost-cutting at the expense of the locals.

It is an interesting idea for changing how H1Bs are limited, although it doesn't take much thinking to come up with some ways to game such a system. It would get complex, and fast.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#70

Post by carsongross » Tue, Dec 02, 2014, 5:28 PM UTC

The Silicon Valley privilege bubble is on farcical display here.

The immigration that bothers the vast majority of Americans (and, indeed, the native populations in all countries) is low-skilled immigration that swamps lower-income communities and drives down wages for the middle and lower classes.

At this point I cannot help but think that the conflation of these two different types of immigration is intentional.