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Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

nytimes.com

31–40 of 111 posts

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#31

I'll take a stab at a response: - The argument against H1B isn't an argument against immigration or immigrants, it is an argument against corporate welfare. This pretty much negates all of the points the author makes (We all agree immigrants provide diversity, some are net positives on the economy, sometimes talent doesn't exist in the US, etc) - H1Bs aren't allowed to start companies, so this point is moot - It isn'…

> and those dollars in the economy are concentrated in hands of the very wealthy on the backs of immigrants. You're very obviously wrong. The employees of Tesla and its suppliers will extract the extreme majority of all financial value from the existence of Tesla. If Tesla survives for 20 years, that tally will be in the multiple hundreds of billions. Elon Musk will end up owning a single digit percentage of that val…

Oracle

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#32

I don't think anyone, red or blue or purple, really wants to stop skilled immigrants from coming to America. The debate is around those who are less skilled.

> I don't think anyone, red or blue or purple, really wants to stop skilled immigrants from coming to America.

Lots of people, some of them quite publicly—including Steve Bannon, Trump's Chief Strategist in that latter group—do. Some because they are competition for jobs, some because of general xenophobia, some for other reasons.

Bannon has specifically criticized legal immigration generally, and the "progressive plutocrats of Silicon Valley" and the H1B program and the preponderance of Asians (calling out both South and East) in tech specifically. If you think he's only interested in curbing "less skilled" immigration, you're mistaken.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bannon-explained-his...

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, white men still bankrolled and ran the show and held most of the tech jobs. What was your experience?

.

It's ridiculous that your previous comment got instantly flagged - apparently some things are not allowed to be a discussion.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#37

I don't think anyone, red or blue or purple, really wants to stop skilled immigrants from coming to America. The debate is around those who are less skilled.

> I don't think anyone, red or blue or purple, really wants to stop skilled immigrants from coming to America. Lots of people, some of them quite publicly—including Steve Bannon, Trump's Chief Strategist in that latter group—do. Some because they are competition for jobs, some because of general xenophobia, some for other reasons. Bannon has specifically criticized legal immigration generally, and the "progressive pl…

They're even looking at cracking down on family visas outside of spouses and kids.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#38

I'm well aware of trumps desire to crackdown on ILLEGAL immigrants but fail to understand how that's going to affect the normal immigrants that make up Silicon Valley like the Russian and Indian used as examples in the article. The travel ban was the first thing I've heard from him that was abhorrent and the near universal smack down it's received from every direction gives me hope that Trump will be kept in his plac…

> first thing I've heard from him that was abhorrent

Respectfully: you have not been paying close attention.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#39

I'll take a stab at a response: - The argument against H1B isn't an argument against immigration or immigrants, it is an argument against corporate welfare. This pretty much negates all of the points the author makes (We all agree immigrants provide diversity, some are net positives on the economy, sometimes talent doesn't exist in the US, etc) - H1Bs aren't allowed to start companies, so this point is moot - It isn'…

> and those dollars in the economy are concentrated in hands of the very wealthy on the backs of immigrants. You're very obviously wrong. The employees of Tesla and its suppliers will extract the extreme majority of all financial value from the existence of Tesla. If Tesla survives for 20 years, that tally will be in the multiple hundreds of billions. Elon Musk will end up owning a single digit percentage of that val…

Fantasy. The vast overwhelming majority of corporation valuation is in stockholders' hands. By what measure can employees be seen to benefit from this? They are given a tiny stream of revenue for their labor. That's it. Explain.

Re: Why Silicon Valley Wouldn't Work Without Immigrants

#40
>To outsiders, this may sound alarmist, and perhaps more than a little self-righteous. It does sound alarmist -- so far the only changes to immigration have been the 7 nation EO and some talk about H1-B.

>They’re looking for the LeBrons and Bradys — the best people in the world

The LeBrons and Bradys of IT would not have any trouble obtaining a work permit or even citizenship from any country in the world -- but given the statistical rarity of superstars (by definition a superstar exists at the top of their profession, even one dominated by highly-skilled people), why would the US need to admit 85K (60K H1-B and 20K master's exempt) immigrants to find them?

Source: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

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