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H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

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Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#281

Post by preommr »

jitix wrote: post #220
anukin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an extremely isolated data point. He was born rich. Had the money and privilege to do coaching to go to an elite Indian engineering college. Went to US from there. When he came back his buddies from college where VCs. They funded him. His startup collapsed terribly even after so much of luck, privilege and funding. So now he gives outdated gyaan(wisdom) in Twitter.

This is true everywhere tbh. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos all came from families that were upper-middle class or rich. It's not a bad thing imo since families should strive to improve their situation with every generation, but it's important to highlight that rags-to-riches stories are extremely rare. There are probably many who also got their visa rejected and were stuck with huge loans for their studies…

> upper-middle class or rich.

Upper middle class covers a lot of commonplace jobs like dentists, accountants, engineers, etc.

Also you're leaving out lots of people that do come from even more humble origins like Steve Jobs, Oprah, Jay Z, Soros, etc.

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#282

Post by spaceman_2020 »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #198
cercatrova wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason not to go back to India: climate change and heat. People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population, many people will starve in the coming decades as droughts cause crop failures. This will cause food and water wars as rising instability of the subcontinent means many people will need asylum. The area will not be geopolitically, financially, or otherwise stable in such a time. If I we…

> People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population This is only true for poor people. It might sound bad, but average Indian live much worse life than someone who could afford/have skills to visit US.

In Delhi this year, I had my ACs running practically 24x7. I could stomach the power bills but the quality of life is atrocious. I basically couldn’t work outdoors or even go for a simple walk to the neighbourhood otherwise I’d be drenched in sweat.

Modern Indian apartments in major cities are also atrociously designed with little care for ventilation and materials.

You can fight the elements, but then you’re just locked inside a concrete and glass box all day long. No fun in that.

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#283

Post by runlevel1 »

LZ_Khan wrote: post #247
dxbydt wrote: post #26

In the early 1990s when I came here, the prevailing wisdom was that its categorically better to immigrate to the US from India if you get a chance. India was too far back in the tech space, too much bureaucracy, corruption, red-tape etc etc... In the 2020s, the consensus is quite mixed. A lot of people I personally worked with, who successfully got their visas and green cards, have given it all up and gone straight b…

Is that why my LeetCode ranking is always so depressingly abysmal? My solutions are always bottom 25% of speed and space usage, and the pass rate for some of their questions are way higher than my average.

It might be like the old adage says: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#284

Post by spaceman_2020 »

yieldcrv wrote: post #268
dxbydt wrote: post #26

In the early 1990s when I came here, the prevailing wisdom was that its categorically better to immigrate to the US from India if you get a chance. India was too far back in the tech space, too much bureaucracy, corruption, red-tape etc etc... In the 2020s, the consensus is quite mixed. A lot of people I personally worked with, who successfully got their visas and green cards, have given it all up and gone straight b…

May I ask, how fast are the exits if I was to invest in India companies? One thing that turned me off from US venture capital was the culture of delaying exits to the stock market, compared to the 90s when Microsoft/Netscape/Amazon all IPO'd at like $30 million market caps and rallied and there was so much upside and liquidity. Is there a culture like that in India right now, or something similar? I really like how t…

The exit scene is very rough actually. Indian investors are conservative and the public markets don’t have much appetite for loss making companies. Silicon Valley accounting chicanery such as “adjusted EBITDA” don’t fly here - investors demand PAT - Profits After Tax.

Many of the current crop of unicorns have been waiting for years for an exit. If the current funding downturn continues, there is a good chance most of these will wind down without ever getting an exit.

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#285

Post by digianarchist »

SloopJon wrote: post #276
paxys wrote: post #27

US immigration policies for Indian and Chinese nationals has been a blessing for their home grown tech ecosystem. There is no path to a green card or citizenship for anyone who immigrated in the last ~15 years, and the top 5% talent that used to come over by default is now working at or founding companies at home instead. This is directly correlated to the number of tech unicorns in these countries growing exponentia…

> There is no path to a green card or citizenship for anyone who immigrated in the last ~15 years I'm no expert, but I don't think this is quite right. For an applicant with a bachelor's degree, the cutoff date is February 2012 for India, and April 2018 for China: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v... With an advanced degree, it's December 2014 for India and April 2019 for China. Please corr…

You're assuming linear progression. The priority date moves forward very slowly.

An Indian born person applying for a Green Card today will likely be retired or dead before their priority date becomes current.

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#287

Post by dudul »

raitom wrote: post #237
dudul wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to petition for a green card without an h1b. Actually I wonder why in this story, Microsoft didn't sponsor an employment based GC.

Because sponsoring an employment based GC takes considerably more time than filling for an H1B. We're talking at best less than a year for an H1B (filling in April and you receive it in October of the same year) vs 18 months minimum for an European (10+ years for an Indian). I actually got my H1B at my 2nd try. I did not get pick at my 1st try and had to wait until next year but it went quite smoothly. However for my…

I'm not an immigration lawyer but you don't need to have the GC in hands to start working for your employer. You usually get a work permit quickly after the petition is filed.

I used to work with someone whose visa was about to expire so the company just filed a GC to keep her.

That being said, I feel like these things change all the time. When people describe the current H1B process it always seems completely different from the one I went through.

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#288

Post by spaceman_2020 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #79
radicaldreamer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the pollution, weather, water quality, noise, dust, and overall lack of high quality public spaces is a big deal. India is amazing and dynamic in a lot of ways, but there are major intangibles to account for (like how much one values a quiet evening walk in fresh air).

You don't have to live in a Delhi or a Mumbai or a Bangalore. Cities like Dehradun, Ranchi, and more provide many of these amenities.

Man there is really nothing much to do in these smaller cities. It gets boring very fast. There is also a culture that’s very socially intrusive. People will drop in on you unannounced randomly.

Which is great if you’re a socially extroverted person but if you want to get some work done, not the best case scenario

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#289

Post by honkdaddy »

yosito wrote: post #111

As an American from an immigrant family, I think the US is really losing here. We should be giving visas out liberally to any skilled professional who wants one. Immigration is the only thing that ever truly made the US stand out. On the other hand, as a global citizen with multiple passports who hasn't lived in the US for some time, maybe this is a good thing for the rest of the world. Spreading innovation out a bit…

(I'll preface this by noting that I'm Canadian and will never vote in an American election)

One of the reasons that immigration and green cards has always been such a hot-button political issue in the US is that first and second generation immigrants tend to overwhelmingly vote Democrat. You end up with this awkward feedback loop where D's are objectively politically motivated to increase immigration, while for R's it's the opposite. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, that's just how it was explained to me once.

Re: H1B rejected – builds unicorn back home

#290

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

frontman1988 wrote: post #123
cercatrova wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason not to go back to India: climate change and heat. People are basically burning alive there and due to the high population, many people will starve in the coming decades as droughts cause crop failures. This will cause food and water wars as rising instability of the subcontinent means many people will need asylum. The area will not be geopolitically, financially, or otherwise stable in such a time. If I we…

Not to forget the air pollution. The PM 2.5 levels are morbidly high. Millions of deaths are linked to air pollution. People in their 40s,50s are increasingly dying of cardiac arrest, more and more kids have asthama and other lung diseases. Delhi is literally a gas chamber, even Bangalore air is mostly at unhealthy level. Given the population density and increasing industrialization, this problem is only going to inc…

This is the thing for me. You couldn't pay me a million dollars a year to live/work in Gurgaon (Ok, maybe a million for a year or two, but then I'd be out). It is the place that comes closest to Blade Runner in my mind. Every time I went outside I felt like the air was trying to kill me. All of the giant hulking new offices and extremely little green space are like right out of some post apocalyptic nightmare.
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