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Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

paulgraham.com

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Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#191

Post by btilly »

A big problem with the current H1B system is that companies like Infosys are supposed to pay what they claim is market rate, but have every incentive to lie about the true market rate. The problem that Paul would like fixed is that there are a lot of really good programmers who startups would rightly like to hire but can't.

Paul would like to eliminate the cap. But this makes the first problem worse. If you solve the first, then removing the cap makes perfect sense.

So how do we solve the first? My proposal is that any company wanting import an employee can, but has to post a significant bond for the cost of deporting the employee if there are problems. That immigrant is free to transfer employment. At the end of a year, if that immigrant left to go to another company, the original employer loses the bond and owes the difference between the immigrant's current income and the original one.

Under this proposal there is a disincentive to bring in an immigrant unless said immigrant really is paid above market rate for their skills. Locals may not like the competition, but people will be hiring immigrants because they think they are better, and not because they are cheaper than the market.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#192

Post by OmarIsmail »

larrys wrote: post #115

"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…

That exceptional labor either moves to other businesses locally (good for the local economy) or it goes back home and you're back to where you were. Not sure what the downside is here?

Educated, hardworking people are always a fantastic asset to any country. They're not the ones you need to be worried about no matter what the economic condition. This isn't about bringing in a lot of migrant farmers for permanent citizenship.

My suggestion: New VISA. Similar requirements and restrictions as an H1-B (educated, employment based, dual intent so can be switched to a green card with enough time). Only companies (no subsidiaries) with more than 3 employees or 500K in the bank and less than 500 employees can apply. Don't have the same timing as an H1-B, make it like the O1 where visas can be processed and granted year round.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#193

Post by chaz »

xiaoma wrote: post #17

> So they claim it's because they want to drive down salaries. But if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the the US, where they then paid them the same as they'd have paid an American. Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they're telling the truth: there ar…

Most tech startups don't have full-time lawyers, but they have full-time programmers.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#194

Post by arjie »

pastProlog wrote: post #183
petilon wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read footnote [2] in Paul Graham's article. He is against the importation of low-cost programmers. He is only for the importation of exceptional programmers, regardless of where they were born.

> Footnote [2]: it is dishonest of the anti-immigration people to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by the same motives Profit? Who is being dishonest here? How is being against an H1-B indentured servant coolie visa being one of the "anti-immigrant" people? I guess the women's groups who protest that Russian, Mexican and Brazilian strippers are being imported into Tenderloin clubs are anti-imm…

There are two different classes of H1B sponsors : Cognizant, Tata, Wipro and gang; and Google, Facebook, Amazon and gang. AFAIK, the latter pay competitive salaries. The former, not so much. Conflating the two is not constructive.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#195

Post by fsloth »

slantedview wrote: post #97
jitl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the essay? You seem to be totally ignoring the point that excellent programmers will be paid well because they are scarce compared to "decent" programmers. The goal is not to import cut-rate talent at cut-rate prices.

Actually, studies have shown that IS the goal. It might not be Paul's goal, personally, but generally speaking it is the goal of immigration policy for tech workers - to make labor cheap.

Yeah, I concur. Basically the gradient in the price of labour between countries is driven up to a point by immigration policies. In the general sense increasing the pool of candidates will lower wages.

I suppose what PG is after is creating a policy of allowing 'black swan standard' programmers of outstanding skill more in to the US using a different mechanism than the current H1B?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#196

Post by briandear »

sampo wrote: post #87
buro9 wrote: post #44

There is more than immigration in the way of non-US programmers moving to the US: 1) Immigration 1) Health care 3) Living standards (some part cost of rent, some part accessible lifestyle, some part relationships and future plans, etc) I'm a London programmer and yes immigration is an issue, but health care (for themselves and their partner) is joint #1 on that front. It's hard not to look on US healthcare as being t…

> It's hard not to look on US healthcare as being the worst possible product of US politics and that starts to impact the standard of living thing. It would be nice, if there were some rough guidelines, how much more I'd need to ask salary in the US, that would cover the extra fees for insurance and health care, that I get for free in most Western European countries?

Health care isn't free in ANY country. You pay for it, even if indirectly. The high taxes and high 'social charges' in a place like France results in much lower salary. One could argue, that in France your purchasing power is much less than someone in the US paying for health insurance out of pocket. Rails devs in France might make 35k euros per year, so one could argue that, compared to a $120k salary in the US, that you're making substantially less in France, despite almost "free" healthcare. If you also add in, for example, in Paris the cost of accommodation, the higher cost for things like food and consumer goods, that 35k salary is looking pretty bleak. One could ask yourself if approximately $80k less is worth 'free' university and 'free' healthcare plus higher costs for pretty much everything. I'm not saying either place is better (however I do happen to live in France,) but there's no such thing as "free" healthcare or "free" education.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#197

Post by craigyk »

sz4kerto wrote: post #29

Hm, an article from pg I don't really agree with (even if I am benefiting from EU's open labor market). There are plenty of 'exceptional' programmers out there with not exceptional salaries. Anybody is free to hire one. There are a couple of problems though: - they're hard to identify - they might be exceptional in one situation and mediocre in another situation. The fact you are doing great at company X and task Y d…

I agree with you; your second point is a good one. It's easier to increase the size of the pool rather than figure out how to better select within the current pool size; and if your concern is truly just getting "the best", it's cheaper to go abroad than to "steal" proven talent from competitors.

If companies were willing to pay their top engineering talent anywhere close to C-level salaries, they would have no problem finding willing applicants. There is no legit argument for upsizing the H1B program that does not rest heavily on cost.

That said, I am not against the US taking highly-skilled immigrants, even if it does temporarily depress salaries... The only bad things about the current program is the indentured servitude aspect of it... if tech companies were truly interested only in talent they wouldn't lobby to expand the H1B program, but open the borders more in general. But of course giving tech workers that much freedom would mean their expectations and demands would just quickly equilibrate more quickly, reducing the "value".

I also don't completely buy his argument on percentages. Even poor kids in the US have probably had 100X more access to technology than their counterparts abroad. I think early access and exposure to technology is pretty important for developing the intuition that comes in useful when trying to understand how things work and appreciating and recognizing good design. I would guess that the US has a much larger percentage of the world's talented workers than is naively calculated based on population alone. A better measure would have some per capita weighting.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#198

Post by arjie »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #167

What I take away from the HN/Startup/Recruiting drama: * Companies don't know how find good people (they think they know how to attract them, but honestly, how can they tell? They don't notice the ones they fail to attract, which I'd argue is most people) * Companies are unable to produce (e.g. educate) good people * They want to solve their failures by increasing the search space of people I have no sympathy at all…

Someone else can always offer 20% more than you if they use you to train. This may work on the small scale where you build lasting relationships, but on the scale of large companies? You'd rapidly gain a reputation of being a springboard, and not a place people join to do their best work.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#199

Post by dang »

slantedview wrote: post #92

Paul's entire argument is a strawman. H1B isn't about hiring "great programmers". It IS about importing cheap labor. This fact has been proven many times, with actual data rather than rhetoric, yet we still find ourselves having this same argument over and over. Here's a nearly 10 year old study that lays it out: http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1BWages

> Paul's entire argument is a strawman. H1B isn't about hiring "great programmers"

You use the word "strawman" and without skipping a beat replace his argument with one (about H1Bs) that he obviously isn't making.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#200

Post by pastProlog »

petilon wrote: post #164
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…

By all means, write to your elected representatives to cut down on importation of cut-rate programmers. But know that this doesn't disprove Paul Graham's point. He is against the importation of cut-rate programmers too (see his footnote [2]). He is only for the importation of top-notch programmers.

The H1-B visa IS supposed to be for top-notch programmers. That's what it exists for.
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