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The Founder Visa

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Founder Visa

#151

Post by veteran »

ajju wrote: post #144
veteran wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh..hard point to understand (or swallow?). I don't believe in this assumption -- "There are certainly some combination of country/startup where the founders would be better off in Silicon Valley - when we are talking about founders who need visas (they can't get EB5 green card which is given based on investment or business visas which are pretty much given to anyone who has valid established business or who are not…

Actually there is a cap on H1B visas for advanced degree holders (20000/year) and this year this cap was met before the cap for the general category.

you are right Ajju..this 20,000 exemption number indeed was not enough this year ..I sponsored 2 H1Bs in 2006 and that year it was different..there is just strong appetite for those visas.. I am in full support of increasing that exemption limit because it seems it is pretty finite short fall and don't know why it is not given by priority in the general bucket.. if somebody is doing something on that then let me know how to support.. As far as Paul, you not being able to understand what I say..I don't expect you to understand much of it anyway..from your essay and comments, you come out as a typical guy who has a 100% workable solution (in his mind) but he does not understand the problem or market..

Re: The Founder Visa

#152

Post by BerislavLopac »

The main problem here is that there is no need for founders to move to the USA to get funded by the US investors.

How would such a visa benefit foreign investors? If there is a shortage of good entrepreneurs in the States, wouldn't it be easier if the VC's start fishing around the world instead of waiting for all the fish to come to their own pond?

Y Combinator should take a hint from their UK/European counterpart, Seedcamp. Starting in London two years ago with a similar model as YC has in the US, they have started organizing local mini-Seedcamps throughout Europe to make it easier for the startups to apply: the first mini-Seedcamp was last year in Kiev, Ukraine, while this year they have a tour of seven cities -- Tel Aviv, Paris, Warsaw, London, Helsingborg, Ljubljana and Berlin; check www.seedcamp.com -- where local startups may apply towards the main event in London later this year.

Re: The Founder Visa

#153

Post by pmjordan »

trapper wrote: post #54
dfranke wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you are not likely to get funding until you move here I think it's likely that if this visa existed, VCs would adapt to it by becoming more open to funding people who haven't immigrated yet.

Can anyone think of a wonderful business (think truly great) that couldn't get funding until they were in the US? From what I have seen there is tons of money if your model is great. I think the counter is true: it's much easier to raise money for bleeding edge ideas in the US. But, ask yourself whether you want to be doing a bleeding edge business (e.g. based on twitter or facebook) or one thats more likely to make…

Can anyone think of a wonderful business (think truly great) that couldn't get funding until they were in the US?

How would you know? You only hear about the success stories and the spectacular failures, not the full spectrum in between.

But, ask yourself whether you want to be doing a bleeding edge business (e.g. based on twitter or facebook) or one thats more likely to make you wealthy (B2B).

Just because you'd prefer to do a B2B startup you want to deny others from trying to go straight to the top?

Re: The Founder Visa

#154

Post by david927 »

nickpp wrote: post #129

A VISA?! Are you f..ing kidding me? Do you know what a fragile status one has while on a VISA? Any day you your visa can be revoked and you can be thrown out. Do you expect me to risk everything, to pour my life and blood into a business while under the stress that if anything goes wrong I am on a plane with a one-way ticket to a place where I have nothing anymore, together with my family and away for any of my frien…

The change has to come to take the money and investment out to where it's happening. Innovation is spreading everywhere, yet investment is local, which means North America and (parts of) Europe. And this isn't necessary anymore. The trick isn't to find a way to bring the people to the money, it's a way to bring the money to the people. Most founders will do anything for their startup, but even then, asking someone to move countries is a big request. Americans often think that people would cut off their arm for a US passport; it's simply not true. My opinion is that more of the hard problems are being worked on outside the US than in it, and that means that this investment migration is inevitable.

Re: The Founder Visa

#155

Post by trapper »

pmjordan wrote: post #153
trapper wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone think of a wonderful business (think truly great) that couldn't get funding until they were in the US? From what I have seen there is tons of money if your model is great. I think the counter is true: it's much easier to raise money for bleeding edge ideas in the US. But, ask yourself whether you want to be doing a bleeding edge business (e.g. based on twitter or facebook) or one thats more likely to make…

Can anyone think of a wonderful business (think truly great) that couldn't get funding until they were in the US? How would you know? You only hear about the success stories and the spectacular failures, not the full spectrum in between. But, ask yourself whether you want to be doing a bleeding edge business (e.g. based on twitter or facebook) or one thats more likely to make you wealthy (B2B). Just because you'd pre…

"How would you know? You only hear about the success stories and the spectacular failures, not the full spectrum in between."

By truly great I was meaning something that was a spectacular success. Every company I have ever had the pleasure of knowing personally with a great model had plenty of capital, whatever location they were in. Others who thought there model was great, but clearly was too risky didn't.

"Just because you'd prefer to do a B2B startup you want to deny others from trying to go straight to the top?"

I am not denying anyone from starting anything, just pointing at the facts. It's much easier to get a B2B making money than a twitter widget that isn't charging.

In my opinion, those types of businesses are never going to be the next youtube, so why bother. You either go for the home run or the easy money. But that's just my opinion.

Re: The Founder Visa

#156

Post by delackner »

arram wrote: post #17

Anyone who missed it should check out the etherpad link: http://etherpad.com/ep/pad/slider/foundervisa Very cool.

That was amazing, a window into the thought process. Knowing that the whole bit about Erdos numbers doesn't appear in the final text I was fascinated watching the process of its evolution into the final completely different idea.

Re: The Founder Visa

#158

Post by Raplh »

bokonist wrote: post #47

How would the government decide who's a startup investor? The same way they decide what counts as a university for student visas. We'll establish our own accreditation procedure. This part scares me. Accreditation boards are a bug, not a feature. Perhaps, like pg's idea, they started out as well intentioned. But today, their primary purpose is to erect arbitrary barriers of entries, thus propping of the salaries of p…

Rather than ranking the proposal against some version of protection, I evaluate it in terms of: would more good stuff happen with the proposal than without it?

Clearly it would. Clearly having SOME additional number of people admitted who are at least doing SOME version of a startup would be a positive step.

The number of things that have to go wrong to make this proposal a net negative are unrealistically perverse and pessimisitc. If EVERY policy proposal is held to a standard of "we will only do this if there is NO CONCIEVABLE WAY of ever making it be bad," then no policy proposals would ever be implemented.

Think of it like a business. It is better to do something that is approximately right in a non-optimal fashion then it is to do nothing until you are exactly right or, as the poet says, to optimize too early.

Re: The Founder Visa

#159

Post by iamelgringo »

catz wrote: post #107
iamelgringo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvote for the "Mexicans" reference. Perhaps saying, "There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Would 1 million engineers and scientists be a bad thing?" And, 1 million engineers and scientists would depress salaries in the US. That's a plus for founders, but a minus for engineers and scientists trying to find work. I'm almost always on the side of greater immigration into this country, but…

> Downvote for the "Mexicans" reference. Perhaps saying, "There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. Would 1 million engineers and scientists be a bad thing?" Saying there are over 5 million Mexicans in the USA is a completely factual statement. It is true that you have much higher immigration (both legal and illegal) from neighbouring countries than parts of the rest of the world. > And, 1 mi…

It's actually 13 million Mexicans: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/15/Study-13M-Mexican-nat...
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