241–250 of 655 posts
I'm new to HN, and would consider my self a competent developer. How does a competent developer become an exceptional one?
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…
(They then offered me pretty much the same job, but working in their European office, so win/win :D )
If you have something to say that is worthwhile, there is no need to apply labels to people who may think differently.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paul Graham is representing the startups that he's invested in - not Apple, Google and FB. The BigCos are already big enough to have international offices to mitigate these immigration issues. A 20 person startup doesn't.
> From the essay: But it is dishonest of the anti-immigration people to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by the same motives. An influx of inexpensive but mediocre programmers is the last thing they'd want; it would destroy them. Eric Schmidt not only illegally colluded in a conspiracy to drive down programmer salaries, his e-mails say things like "this may be illegal so delete this e-mail". I…
Now, BigCos may still want good people they bring from the outside to have low wages, but that doesn't change the fact that they still want to (and can't) bring in good people from the outside.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany. Software companies have to live in the same space. I don't agree with this. The tech industry is beautiful & far-reaching in large part because it doesn't have the restrictions of proximity to the degree of many other industries. I would hate to see artificial limits placed on it to force the same conditions as traditional Brick and mo…
You mean like, say, clothing or electronics manufacture, in which conditions for workers are a global race to the bottom?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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, tha…
Rent is a cruel joke, as is land tax (so much for housing costs). Food is more expensive on the label (unless you're counting Ramen, where things are close), and there's sales tax on top (while EU prices are all-in).
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…
I've done exactly what you've suggested (and I would be confident enough to say I've done it successfully). However, two flaws with your suggestions: time and risk. Increasing the search space of people eliminates/reduces both of these.
I will argue that the presented approach is the "right thing" (reap what you sow) and increasing the search space is the "wrong thing" (why should US companies get more than their 5% of programming talent?).
I don't want US companies to have more talent than the US population can produce. I actually consider their requests stealing. It's not theirs to take. If they can't produce their own talent then they should perish by their own merits.
That being said, I don't believe in the 95/5% figure proposed by Graham. I think everybody can be a valuable partner given enough motivation.
I also think that they are not looking for talent but for slaves. It's really just imperialism in disguise.
This is nothing new. The problems with work visas in the US are: 1. Cheap bodyshops consuming much of the quota; and 2. Immigration being tied to an employer. (2) is a direct cause of (1). For those that don't know, sponsorship for a green card basically involves two stages. Labor Certification ("LC") is the first and most time-consuming stage. It involves "proving" you can't find a US citizen to fill the job. There…
During the first 6 years or until the LC is filed, H1 workers can work for any employer in their field of study. After the LC has been filed, they can switch jobs as long as the job title/requirements are substantially similar (thanks to the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act). And the recent executive action by Obama will make it even easier for post-LC workers to change jobs.
I have yet to meet someone on an H1 who felt tethered down to their employers. Almost every H1 worker I know has switched jobs at some point. This whole idea of the "indentured H1 worker" is complete lie, and anyone making it is being dishonest. It's just a cover-up for their hatred for immigrants -- a lie fabricated to cloak their hatred as concern.
it's easy to imagine cases where a great programmer might invent things
worth 100x or even 1000x an average programmer's salary.
All hail the $100M/yr rockstar programmer.
I can't wait to see the cool things that will come out of a greater distribution of wealth to hackers, geeks and programmers. Think of all the neat kickstarter campaigns that will get funded... and all of the startup ideas that can find angel funding. And all the open-source and Makerspaces and rockets etc, etc.
I've watched it first hand from the sidelines. I'm not a programmer but I work directly with them on a daily basis. VERY, VERY few of the immigrants I've seen coming in are what I would consider remotely in the realm of elite.
Elite programers can find a job in any country, and they can make a ton of money in any country. That's the beauty of the internet, there's absolutely no reason they need to come to the US to flourish. The people trying to come here aren't the elites.