51–60 of 160 posts
I'd like to see a few more of these in Etherpad.
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…
One danger is that the accreditation process for recognised investors could be hijacked and used to give special privileges to a small number of firms.
Having been through the hoops, I'd generally support this, but it's a tough sell in today's economy. Because there are emotions involved. There are already similar visas (EB-5 and E-1). Especially the E-1 category is very close and could easily be amended to fit Paul's ideas (I used the E-1 as co-founder of my previous startup, EVE). One issue that needs to be addressed: you are not likely to get funding until you mo…
> 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.
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 you wealthy (B2B).
As a non-American who applied to YC twice the article was a pleasant surprise. However I'm not sure America is as attractive to non-American founders as some people think. I'll explain (my arguments are mostly personal perceptions...I have no practical evidence yet on any of this since my own startup is still at the "wrote some code" stage). Let's suppose there are 2 types of founders: people who have enough money &…
I think the algorithm PG proposes is something like this:
1. Produce enough that you would be able to convince someone to fund you. Maybe this takes a prototype, a convincing sales pitch, ramen profitability, etc.
2. Convince someone to [seed] fund you.
3. Move to a place with an environment favorable to startups.
4. Continue working on your product, now with access to investors, other founders, good employees, great weather, ...
The idea is to get to step 4 as fast as possible. In most parts of the world you'd never be able to find good investors or a startup-supporting culture, and that counts for lot. As PG has pointed out, there's a huge variance in startup-friendliness even amongst the major cities in the US.
I'm thinking: how can this be exploited? Can someone just say they're building a new way to shorten urls and need two years in the country to build their business to fruition? And what defines success or progress?
That's why you use investors as the test. I don't think you need to define progress.
I've gone through the process, and despite it being a lot of paperwork and requiring the help of a lawyer, it was ultimately a good experience.
In order to get such a visa, one has to submit a business plan, and show sufficient funds from abroad. Interestingly, the funds only have to be appropriate for the business to be started, there is no set minimum like a lot of people assume (e.g. 100k). An example my lawyer gave me was a woman that wanted to start a horse riding school, and who got her E-2 by proving an investment of ~30k into her company.
I started an internet business, and my investment was in the same ballpark.
Also, for founders already living in the US, it is ok to work on setting up the business, e.g. incorporating etc, while applying for the E-2, as long as no customers are being engaged and money is being earned.
A downside is, that there is no straight path from the E-2 to a greencard; other then upping the investment (which has to come from abroad) to $10^6.
Edit: There is another downside, mentioned elsewhere in this thread. One has to be from a 'treaty' nation.
Disclaimer: I'd strongly advise you to consult an immigration lawyer if you want to do this.
I usually avoid politics, but since we now seem to have an administration that's open to suggestions, I'm going to risk making one If your goal is to persuade as many people as possible, insulting the previous administration and by extension those that voted for Bush is a bad start. I was already opposed to your idea before the second sentence, despite the fact that I'm an advocate of increased legal immigration.
The first reason is that the employer knows his worker is dependent on him – he can thus get away with a lower salary, etc... The second reason it is bad is that you cannot quit and start a start-up – if you do not have a sponsoring company you must be out of the country in 60 days.
The third reason is that it deters people from going to the USA. I really want to go to California next year – but with that Visa system it is not going to happen (probably going to London). Compare the US system and the UK's General Highly skilled Visas (e.g. http://www.workpermit.com/uk/uk-immigration-tier-system/tier...) – it is really no fuss and valid for a time period.
There are already more than 5 million Mexicans in the US. Would 1 million engineers and scientists really be a bad thing?