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YC Interviews in India

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Re: YC Interviews in India

#71

Post by winter_blue »

keerthiko wrote: post #31
jmspring wrote: post #27

Good to see YC expand. I’m curious, though, if innovation ramps up in the startup space in both China and India, will there be a decrease in demand for immigration to the states? My own experience across the visa spectrum is some want to move here permanently, some want to make their stake here and return back to their home country, some want to come here and build new businesses. I don’t mean it as A discussion abou…

SV is ground zero and probably will be for some time, but the forces of present immigration climate are unlike it has ever been in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if it topples SV's position as the innovation hub in the near future. In the past, immigration was a minor barrier comparable to other barriers founders and innovators face regularly, but one that needed to be overcome. Today, especially with the free…

The immigration situation for skilled/educated workers, has to my knowledge, always been extremely bad in the US. Right now, it's gotten worse to another level, but it's not like it was anywhere close to good before. There is no founder visa. A few rare people (including you) have managed to get the O-1 visa; but that's usually an extraordinary difficult endeavor. Even getting a new H-1B is incredibly hard, with your chance of winning in the lottery less than 40%, and there being a significantly long (~7 months) before you can even start working. Moreover, you're prohibited on having majority control over your company on an H-1B, and need to ensure there's a board that can fire you. So there's that.

Then there's getting an EB-1 approved ... I don't how you managed to get it, but kudos to you on that. From what I've read, it's incredibly difficult, and usually an order of magnitude more difficult than getting an O-1. Immigration guides often say you need win the Nobel Prize in order to qualify for it. But I've also heard luck plays a huge factor -- in terms of who your adjudicating officer is. Anyways, there's very little info out there (on the interwebs) that talks about how to succeed with an O-1 or EB-1 application. (It would be great if you could write about it.)

Re: YC Interviews in India

#72

Post by winter_blue »

giarc wrote: post #68
sarthakjain wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US visas

But for the interview they would just need a travel visa right? If they were accepted they would still need to travel to the US and have the same issue they did prior?

Yes, they would just need a visitor visa (B1/B2/VWP-ESTA). I think YC is conducting interviews in India mainly for convenience. Why force a 100 potential founders to fly to the U.S. to attend an interview -- which would probably cost for flight+hotel around $1500 per person, so that's $150,000 wasted. Not to mention besides the money, there's time wasted as well -- the time flying in airplane (34 hours -- 17 hours each way). It's simply economically, from both a monetary and time perspective, more efficient to avoid unnecessary travel for an interview.

Moreover, there's also the fact that it's practically impossible to move to the U.S. as a founder of a company (there's no visa for founders). People from a select few countries (that the US has trade treaties with) and who have $100k in savings just lying around might be able to self-sponsor a E-2, but I'm most YC-funded founders probably don't qualify for this either. Especially not founders from India, since India is not a E-2 visa treaty country.

Re: YC Interviews in India

#73

Post by kurtisc »

niyaven wrote: post #13
vesh wrote: post #2

Bengalūru, it has been 14 year since the name changed officially would appreciate if people stopped using the anglicized name of our city.

Lots of city names are translated. Even in India people would probably say "Rome" instead of "Roma", "Moscow" instead of "Moskvá". And it's not only in English, Italian would say "Tolosa" instead of "Toulouse", German would say "Mailand" instead of "Milan", French would say "Cracovie" instead of "Kraków" an so on...

What about Bombay, Peking, Persia, Siam, Ceylon, Burma, Leningrad?

Re: YC Interviews in India

#74

Post by Jagat »

sumedh wrote: post #57
sbmthakur wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans used the word India long before Britishers colonized India. So it's not really a good analogy. Bombay -> Mumbai is a far better one. However, I do agree that spending taxpayers' money on changing each colonial name is not worth it. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_India

> Europeans used the word India long before Britishers colonized India. So why use a European name, shouldn't it be an "Indian" name.

There's also this other issue that unified India is an extremely new thing and it wasn't common for people within India to refer to that landmass as a whole.

Re: YC Interviews in India

#75

Post by kranner »

keerthiko wrote: post #69
sumedh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but once they have, it is important it is respected. No I dont agree, I still call Mumbai as Bombay most of the times because that was the city I grew up in. I think its disrespectful to the people of Bombay/Bangalore that the govt wastes money changing names instead of fixing actual issues

You have said this in 4+ places in this thread. People who have strong connections with the place (similarly with a person who's name has changed) can use their discretion which name to use, if the person in question is alright with either name. However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission, especially in official context. That's all I have said. Please stop brin…

> However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission, especially in official context.

I don’t see a single reason why it is inappropriate, other than it offending you. Nobody needs permission to use words from anybody else. If anything is offensive, it is this type of gatekeeping.

Keep carrying on like this with talk of how outsiders should behave, and Bangalore will lose the competitive advantage it enjoys as IT workers will find friendlier places to move to.

Re: YC Interviews in India

#76

Post by sarthakjain »

giarc wrote: post #68
sarthakjain wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US visas

But for the interview they would just need a travel visa right? If they were accepted they would still need to travel to the US and have the same issue they did prior?

Typically you have ~2 weeks between being notified and interview. Have personally witnessed a lot of teams where one founder couldn't make the interview in the time frame. For the actual YC program both the invitation letter is much stronger, you probably have an established US entity and a strong reason to be in the US. Less likely you get denied a Visa.

Re: YC Interviews in India

#78

Post by throwycq6743 »

Politically incorrect question

Who will be doing the interviews? Typical YC partners or Indian YC partners. Don’t trust the Indian partners to not be discriminatory against minorities, women, lgbtqi etc founders. Things are bad here. Being openly gay gets you fired.

Re: YC Interviews in India

#80

Post by sumedh »

keerthiko wrote: post #69
sumedh wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but once they have, it is important it is respected. No I dont agree, I still call Mumbai as Bombay most of the times because that was the city I grew up in. I think its disrespectful to the people of Bombay/Bangalore that the govt wastes money changing names instead of fixing actual issues

You have said this in 4+ places in this thread. People who have strong connections with the place (similarly with a person who's name has changed) can use their discretion which name to use, if the person in question is alright with either name. However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission, especially in official context. That's all I have said. Please stop brin…

> However it is inappropriate for an outsider to use an unofficial name or deadname without permission

I dont think its inappropriate, that is how names change over time. Just embrace it, dont fight it.

> Please stop bringing up taxpayer money

Why? Shouldnt you say something if the govt is wasting money on frivolous activities?

> I could say the US taxes shouldn't be spending trillions on military before fixing other problems like homelessness in SF, but that's not how taxes or governments work.

I agree, the US should be spending less on military and more on the welfare of its citizens.

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