141–150 of 655 posts
Of course the seductive argument of the bosses is that economic growth will benefit, but the post-crisis economy is proving to concentrate all returns to capital, and none to labour.
It's no wonder that those who champion it the most have nothing to worry about to feed and house their families for the rest of their lives.
>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…
This. I really think we're talking about different things though. Clearly, as has been proven, the H1B program is about importing cheap labor. This is a fact, like gravity. I'm sure that entrepreneurs like Paul would love to attract more excellent engineers, but our current immigration mechanisms aren't the way to do it, and really, that's not even what they're for (regardless of what their advocates say, again, based on fact).
>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…
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…
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…
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 underestimate how fortunate US is for being top destination of good programmers (and engg. in general). US has tons of companies founded by immigrants - Tesla, Bose, Sun Microsystems, Hotmail, Yahoo to just name a few.
I agree that, something ought to be done so as Services companies (Infosys, Cognizant) have limited access to H1B visa pool and process is fairer to smaller companies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, he does say "if"... I think PG's point is that some people are naturally great, regardless of their environment. So, yes, Congo or Nigeria or whatever have a bunch of guys who might have been great programmers if given the opportunity. But in less extreme cases, i.e. most of the world, those naturally gifted folks find their way into a compsci program or start hacking on an old machine and teach themselves or w…
"So even if only half of the 95% of people born with great aptitude are found in places with modern amenities and good education systems, that's still 9x more than here in the US." Half is extremely optimistic. China and India contain a significant portion of the world's population, and there are significant populations in those nations that have never owned a computer. Longterm, it is likely that many of these natio…
One thing that I don't get about the critics (especially the liberal-inclined) from H1B programs is: even if opening the gates ends up resulting in cheaper labor, what is wrong about that? If the gates were open, the ones coming here to work for cheap won't be taking your jobs at the next startup fad. They will be working doing the things that Americans don't want to do: improving network infrastructure, doing boring…
What is wrong is that cheapness is enforced by making those laborers a second class citizen- they need to stay with the company that sponsors their visa or they get kicked out of the country. Thats also the only reason why they're cheaper. Because, by law, their employers have stripped them of the only negotiating right an employee usually has- the ability to switch jobs. This would be unethical enough if it existed…
I got a H1B outside of the quota (education/not for profit). The industry I was working was probably paying 10-15% than I could get if I got a job at a tech company, but not any lower than a startup. Every startup I interviewed was paying the same or more than the job I took. They would gladly pay whatever I asked. The problem was in dealing with the bureaucracy of immigration. Most of the fear of switching jobs would go away if foreigners knew they could be easily hired by small/medium-sized companies and startups.
The first thing that caught me reading through the comments section here is that a lot of folks complain about immigrants pushing down wages. While there are certainly places that happens, I don't think that's what Paul's talking about here. However, there is another form of that which does happen -- immigrants do stabilize wages, even at startups, and wage fluctuation dictates some of which businesses are tenable and which aren't (and where they're tenable and where they aren't -- some businesses that would make sense in Dehli wouldn't make sense in San Francisco).
For the CEO mentioned, as salary goes to infinity, so to does his ability to hire as many great developers as he would like. To hire 30 developers the next day, there exists a salary which would make that possible. It's just that his business would probably not be tenable paying that much.
So, I think there's a component missing to the essay: how much wage stabilization is desirable via immigration? There's already a salary gap between working as a developer in the Bay Area vs. working almost anywhere else. How large should the ratio be allowed to grow? How much of being the hub is defined by having wages that are a small multiplier of wages elsewhere in the world for the same positions?
Second, the title seems a bit unfortunate. There's obviously not a uniform distribution of great programmers around the world. There's probably a pretty strong correlation between the distribution of home computers a decade ago and the home countries of great developers. The distribution not being uniform isn't really important to the point being made (it's fair to assume that most great programmers weren't born inside the US), but since it's implied so prominently in the title, it's harder to give it a pass.