Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In • Hacker News Board

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#111

Post by sampo » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

droopyEyelids wrote: post #81

austenallred wrote: post #12

I really want to believe this, but I'm not sure that I do. Of course the tech companies want to hire people from overseas; being able to hire someone from India for half the cost but have them live in the US so there's some level of accountability/trust is a no-brainer. Huge new, cheap talent pool. But, if I'm an entry-level, US-based programmer, what I see are floods of cheap talent, some with questionable skills, c…

To me the most interesting way of framing this is in terms of the changes that'll happen to the owners of businesses. The question of the talent of the new employees is secondary when you realize they will have to move countries in order to be tied to a specific job on penalty of getting their visa revoked . So suddenly, you create an unlimited class of employees with no bargaining power, and can play them against yo…

> tied to a specific job on penalty of getting their visa revoked.

This is true if you hire from third world. I am from Northern Europe, and having a visa revoked and going back to my home country would not be a threat to me. I'd just happily move back home, and find a job there.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#112

Post by davismwfl » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

To me the main failure and what negates the argument to me is that 95/5% population. Yes, I agree that the US makes up a small percentage of the global population and to think we have the best, smartest or only of anything is stupidly arrogant and extremely short sighted.

However, to assume that of the 7 billion people on the planet and the 6.7 billion that are not in the US are comparable in education, opportunity, training and ability is just not realistic either. While I agree too that greatness can't be taught necessarily, it also can't exist without education, drive and opportunity.

The problem is when you use misleading statistics to make your argument it causes intelligent people many times to negate the validity of the entire argument. While I don't have a problem with h1b's overall, I do have an issue when startup's and other companies argue they can't find anyone in the US.

Having managed a large development team at one time and having used large numbers of H1B's, what I learned was that H1B's are far less job mobile and far more tied to the organization sponsoring their entry. Which is of course one of the core reasons companies like them. It makes competing for the same resources far cheaper and keeps wages lower overall. In most situations when demand increases and supply decreases, cost goes up across the board (e.g. salaries). In tech, the salaries don't increase as much as the cost to the lawyers to get more H1B's to help keep the pay lower.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#113

Post by slantedview » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

ulfw wrote: post #86

Here are the H1B Top Ten visa sponsors: 1 Infosys 32,379 $76,494 2 Tata Consultancy Services 8,785 $66,113 3 Wipro 6,733 $69,953 4 Deloitte Consulting 6,165 $98,980 5 Ibm 5,839 $87,789 6 Accenture 5,099 $70,878 7 Larsen & Toubro Infotech 4,380 $59,933 8 Microsoft 3,911 $113,408 9 Hcl America 3,012 $81,376 10 Satyam Computer Services 2,249 $73,374 How many of those are America's top tech companies who are in dire need…

This says it all.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#114

Post by tsotha » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

>The technology companies are right. What the anti-immigration people don't understand is that there is a huge variation in ability between competent programmers and exceptional ones, and while you can train people to be competent, you can't train them to be exceptional.

What Paul Graham doesn't understand is hardly any of the H-1B people companies are importing are exceptional, and half of them aren't even competent. It's not even about getting enough labor to fill open positions. It's about flooding the market with low cost labor so US technical people lose market pricing power.

These companies don't even know if there's a US citizen who's qualified for the job. I mean, this kind of stuff goes on all the time:

>The contention of the DoJ in this indictment appears to be that Mr. Cvjeticanin was defrauding companies seeking to hire IT personnel, yet for all those hundreds of ads — ads that for the most part never ran and therefore could never yield job applications — nobody complained!

http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/18/so-thats-how-h-1b-visa-fr...

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#115

Post by larrys » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

"American technology companies want the government to make immigration easier because they say they can't find enough programmers in the US. "

I think the question is who are the technology companies that want the government to make it easier. Is it "traditional established" companies that can't get quality programmers because anyone good is off trying to hit the lottery at a startup? Or is it the startups (trying to hit the lottery) who can't recruit?

Either way the question is if the chance of a startup working is considered mid to low (failure rate) then what happens to all of this exceptional labor down the road? The assumption that the current demand (startups) will last for a long time isn't necessarily correct.

Being in business many years (longer than PG iim and it should matter actually) I've seen plenty of cases where people make a demand assumption that later turns out to be the reason they go out of business (buy a new warehouse, expand the restaurant and so on).

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#116

Post by hsitz » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #75

Part of the reality of founding a company in the United States, and taking advantage of the freedoms and protections being in the USA offers, is that you have to work with the USA labor force. If you don't like it- well, go international. Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany. Software companies have to live in the same space. And it's complete and utter BS to suggest that th…

". . . it is not up to corporations to dictate terms of citizenship at their convenience."

Of course not. But it is up to legislators to make decisions that are in the best interests of the U.S. going forward. An enlightened view of that might, as P.G. suggests, include allowing more programmers to come to U.S. To suggest that programmers are somehow analogous to fast-food workers is seriously misguided.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#117

Post by slantedview » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

tartle wrote: post #28

"I asked the CEO of a startup with about 70 programmers how many more he'd hire if he could get all the great programmers he wanted. He said "We'd hire 30 tomorrow morning." Evidence-based policy proposal at its finest :)

The CEO couldn't hire 30 tomorrow morning because he wouldn't pay what they're worth, else he would have already hired them.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#118

Post by oe » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #12

I really want to believe this, but I'm not sure that I do. Of course the tech companies want to hire people from overseas; being able to hire someone from India for half the cost but have them live in the US so there's some level of accountability/trust is a no-brainer. Huge new, cheap talent pool. But, if I'm an entry-level, US-based programmer, what I see are floods of cheap talent, some with questionable skills, c…

In addition to the cheap & bad / talented founders pools there's also the pool of expensive and talented workers who just want to code. I mean, I wouldn't move to the US to work for half of what you make if I'm doing the same job, right?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#119

Post by michaelvkpdx » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

adambratt wrote: post #98

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #75

Part of the reality of founding a company in the United States, and taking advantage of the freedoms and protections being in the USA offers, is that you have to work with the USA labor force. If you don't like it- well, go international. Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany. Software companies have to live in the same space. And it's complete and utter BS to suggest that th…

Uh....most railroad workers were immigrants. I get your point but that probably wasn't the best example.

No- you're thinking of the railroad builders (1860's-1870's). By 1900, when the railroads were into their big boom, most of the imported construction workers had either become citizens or given birth to the next generation, who were citizens.

I guess should have clarified that I meant the engineers, brakemen, locomotive builders, and mechanics, and not the well-known Chinese and Irish immigrants who made up the workforce building west.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#120

Post by petilon » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #75

Part of the reality of founding a company in the United States, and taking advantage of the freedoms and protections being in the USA offers, is that you have to work with the USA labor force. If you don't like it- well, go international. Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany. Software companies have to live in the same space. And it's complete and utter BS to suggest that th…

Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany.

But we don't export burgers to Germany. If we wanted to export burgers all over the world then we'd have to bring the world's best burger-slingers over here first.