Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

If the programmer on the other side of the world is so much better than what you can find locally, surely it would be worth the investment for your company to buy high speed cameras, or remote probes, or whatever else, to make this sort of teleconferencing possible.

Laparoscopic surgeons manipulate human flesh by looking at a screen! The first remote robotic surgery happened 13 years ago!(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_surgery#The_Lindbergh_Op...) I understand that medical equipment is incredibly expensive, but you are not saving lives, so your equipment should be cheaper in an appropriate manner. It seems to me that when scaled out, that solution would be cheaper, and would promote better technological progress in the long run, than the upheaval required to import all the world's greatest programmers into the US.

He wants the top programmers in the world to be able to come to the USA. But my suspicion is he has very little concern for your above average, but not great, USA born programmer whose wages are threatened by corporations that exploit and abuse the H1B Visa program.

First, US is already the third country in list for highest paid programmers, there is not much room to grow.

Second, Companies are in business, not for charity.

Companies are there for profit so if they could hire a beginner programmer for 50k, they should, otherwise they would be out of business and you would be buying everything made in China.

Let's assume there are two types of programmers, normal and great.

Now in a competitive market (which the labor market basically is, especially since the collusion issue has been dealt with), wages and employment levels are determined by supply and demand for each type of programmer.

The current H-1B system allows in both kinds of programmers, increasing the supply of both kinds, and thereby lowering wages. It's important to note that pg makes a mistake when he conflates lowering wages, with H-1B employees earning less than Americans. In fact, if wages stayed the same then the H-1B program would have no effect. When startups complain they cant find the right people, what they mean is they can't afford the effective wage needed to steal people from Google or Facebook (there is always a number that would make them switch).

Now in this framework, pg's proposal can be rephrased as "use H-1Bs to increase the supply of great programmers, instead of ordinary programmers". I agree this is a good proposal, because this gives the best tradeoff in terms of cost (i.e. whatever it is that makes the US limit immigration in the first place) vs benefit (reduced costs for employers).

When analyzing this situation, it's very important to note that high wages are a bad thing in themselves. Just like high prices for milk are good for milk produces and bad for milk consumers, but given the option to create cheap milk (e.g. artificially) society should always take it.

Some people like to compare programmers' situation to, for example, doctors. But to the extent that the AMA artificially limits supply, this is a bad thing for society. Trade unions or professional organizations that use political lobbying (or violence) to artificially limit supply, are harming society for their own benefit. People sometimes claim that tech is full of clueless nerds. I would argue that the "nerdiness" of tech workers also correlates with a decreased capacity for the self-deception needed to support AMA style unionization, and that this is a good thing. It might result in lower wages, all things being equal, but it also results in a better industry overall, and higher growth that itself creates higher wages.

Let's look at what this post really states:

> The US has less than 5% of the world's population. Which means if the qualities that make someone a great programmer are evenly distributed, 95% of great programmers are born outside the US.

This is a huge if. Frankly, it is very difficult to make a strong, compelling policy argument on the back of a flimsy, lazy assumption. Yet it is crucial to Graham's position and used to support statements that aim to preemptively rebut arguments critics make ("It would be great if more Americans were trained as programmers, but no amount of training can flip a ratio as overwhelming as 95 to 5").

It is not Graham's responsibility to prove that the backbone of his argument - the 95 to 5 ratio - is reasonably accurate?

> The anti-immigration people have to invent some explanation to account for all the effort technology companies have expended trying to make immigration easier.

The reference to "anti-immigration people" is not only insulting, this statement pretends that those who are not swayed by the arguments of the tech lobby must be "anti-immigration." To the contrary, one can favor immigration reforms that would make it easier for individuals to come to the United States without naively accepting the validity of all arguments tech companies make in support of immigration reforms.

Is it not Graham's responsibility to explain in a compelling fashion why the tech companies Graham says are "right" are indeed right instead of brushing off anybody who doesn't agree as "anti-immigration"?

> We have the potential to ensure that the US remains a technology superpower just by letting in a few thousand great programmers a year.

Even if one is charitable to Graham and is willing to assume that a) the United States is at risk of losing its status as a technology superpower and b) Graham's figure is plausible, he offers no substantive suggestions for how we identify those "few thousand great programmers" and attract them to the United States. In fact, as someone else here pointed out[1], Graham has previously discussed just how difficult it is to recognize the exceptionally talented.

Is it not Graham's responsibility to provide reasonable detail as to how the United States could actually accomplish what he proposes?

It's fair to state that comments here are not always charitable to post authors, but it's also fair to state that many of the authors simply don't make compelling arguments. If authors are disappointed with the criticism they receive, it's just as much their responsibility to make more compelling arguments as it is for critics to give them the benefit of the doubt at every twist and turn.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799869