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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

#291

Post by danmaz74 »

craigyk wrote: post #235
danmaz74 wrote: post #108

It looks to me like the solution to the problem is simple. Just have a "high tech visa" with no number limit, but one simple requirement: The company requesting the job needs to be offering something like 150% (or 200% or whatever makes sense) the average salary of the US workforce, or in their state. This will ensure that the visa will only be offered for skills that are difficult to find in the USA (or the specific…

an excellent suggestion, also possibly a bidding process... but I'm sure none of the US tech companies will champion this option because there is already room to do this unofficially within the current program... 50,000+ yearly visas gives a lot of overhead above just seeking "truly exceptional" talent.

Big tech companies can play the lottery, smaller ones can't.

And I don't see any need for a bidding process, which implies a fixed quota, a fixed closing date for the bidding, and a lot of uncertainty.

Just require the salary to be high enough to show you really need the skill, not to cut costs, and have a process with a guaranteed timing and outcome.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#292

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tdicola wrote: post #228

Why can't this argument be flipped on its side, if 95% of the best programmers are outside the US then why aren't the venture capitalists investing in and building companies outside the US? Surely we should see 95% of their portfolio companies are outside the US too...

95% of the VCs are in ONE TOWN. Its not a USA vs the world problem. Its just a concentration of wealth problem.

And hey, its not like the best programmers are sheep being herded into the US. They have to apply. Don't they get a say? In a one-world view it doesn't matter where they work.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#293

Post by rayiner »

I think very few people don't want the U.S. to let in exceptional programmers. But the fact is that "1%" programmers are 1% of the population. Tech companies have tremendous trouble identifying those 1% from the other 99%. The government is almost certainly going to do a worse job at that. And if the government delegates screening to the private sector, then the system is tremendously gameable. So the issue isn't whether we should let in those 1% programmers. It's wether it's worth it to let in 99 mediocre programmers for every exceptional one, or to create a system with tremendous incentives to import those 99 mediocre programmers in an effort to drive down wages, hoping we'll get some exceptional ones in the process.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#294

Post by cottonseed »

jacquesm wrote: post #155

Why limit this to programmers? It's not as if we're some kind of privileged and special sub-species of humanity. People should be allowed to move around the globe at will without those pesky borders. That would be one way to get us out of the hole we're in. Drawing arbitrary lines for certain professions and not for others only further deepens the gap. Companies have long ago figured out ways to go trans-national, si…

I agree. While I disagree with the central claim of this essay (it's not about wages), I also think the US should have open borders (as it once did), although I also realize that that is never going to happen.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#296

Post by davidw »

ta75757 wrote: post #62

Paul Graham is fighting for his side. I hope any developers here are smart enough to fight for theirs. He's arguing that the same companies who colluded illegally to drive down the wages of the "best" programmers, now have no interest in lowering their wages when they're arguing for increased immigration. LOL.

> I hope any developers here are smart enough to fight for theirs.

I'm confused. I'm a developer, originally from the US, who lives in Europe. Is an Indian guy who works as a developer on my side? How about a German woman? Is a guy in Alabama willing to work for cheap on my side? Is someone like PG, whose actions have created a shitload (that's the metric shitload, not the American version) of companies completely on the wrong side? Don't some of those companies create jobs? Coming back to whose side I should be on, should I be on the side of Europeans wanting to move to the US, since I have a bunch of friends here, and they seem like pretty good people who are bright, and hard workers? Or are they on the other side? Or am I, an American taking European jobs, on the wrong side?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#297

Post by voidlogic »

IMHO the real issue isn't that they many companies can't find great programmers, its that they only want great programmers who live in their locality.

For many (most?) startups in the valley, if you aren't living in the greater SFO area, or willing to relocate there, they are not interested.

They are dinosaurs living in the past, fighting distributed collaboration. (Which is ironic as they are technology companies). Importing people from overseas to the bay area is actually the hard way of solving the problem.

From first hand XP, I can tell you going distributed has made hiring top notch talent 10x easier. And if I hire someone overseas, they don't have to move...

Again, IMHO all the excuses like "culture" are bullshit, if your culture depends on holding hands as a group every day, your company culture is already fatally weak.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#298

Post by wallflower »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #277
wallflower wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and eventually someone will have the idea. Having read the HipHop paper, I am pretty sure that most people would not have been able to contribute meaningfully to that type of revolutionary project. Execution is everything.

What advances in computer science were necessary for HipHop? It's a bog-standard JIT system of the kind we'd been building for years. Sure, it's well-executed, but it's hardly a "revolutionary project" to those who weren't born yesterday.

Ok, fair enough. HipHop was not the first JIT. I'd like to hear your opinion on MapReduce.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#299

Post by davidw »

curun1r wrote: post #220
gnufied wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder where do you get your data for "hire someone from India for half the cost". Of all the facts thrown around - this is easily verifiable - http://www.h1bwage.com/index.php If you ignore those employed on hourly basis, a majority of people on H1B are paid quite well. Apart from salary and benefits - add Visa processing fees for their Kids and Spouse as well (which can easily amount to > 30k+) I think people und…

I'm a dev manager at a prominent employer of software engineers and I did a search for my company at your link. I can't speak for other employers, but it appears that salaries for H1-Bs are ~25% lower than what I know Americans to be making at those same job titles. Half is almost certainly an exaggeration, but to deny that there's an H1-B discount is equally disingenuous. On the topic of the essay, I worry that Paul…

> If Paul can figure out a way to filter in the great developers while filtering out those that are only coming to make money

Perhaps the ones that just want to work hard and make other people money, rather than aspire to money of their own could get a great big "I'M A SUCKER" stamp on their foreheads?

Here's patio11 on salary negotiation: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ - should that desire to earn a bit more only apply to people who were born in the right place?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#300

Post by andrewmutz »

hacknat wrote: post #287
andrewmutz wrote: post #276

I have a quick question for those arguing against PG's position: Do you genuinely believe that increasing the number of talented software engineers emigrating to the United States is bad for the United States? Or bad for you ? In the same way that I would argue for public policy that benefits us all (not just me), I think we should have immigration policies that benefit everyone, not just Software Engineers.

It could be bad for me and the US, no? Not saying it is, but it is an option. I'm skeptical a sane immigration bill can get passed. The current H1 visas are incredibly generous to the companies that get to sponsor them over the workers. I'd be in favor of a policy that was company agnostic and gave the workers a lot more freedom, such a bill would be good for me, the immigrants, and the U.S., but I sincerely doubt su…

I don't know what H1-B visas you are used to, but the current ones are completely owned by the worker.

An employee sponsored by an H1-B can literally collect their first paycheck and immediately move to another employer.

I'm not sure how much more freedom you want.

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