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Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

paulgraham.com

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Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#71

Post by ryoshu »

xiaoma wrote: post #17

> So they claim it's because they want to drive down salaries. But if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the the US, where they then paid them the same as they'd have paid an American. Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they're telling the truth: there ar…

The reason why tech companies will go through legal contortions is because they don't want to raise the salary floor. If a company can only find a great developer for $100k/yr in the US, but they can find a great developer for $50k/yr through H1B, it makes financial sense to lobby as long as the cost of lobbying is It's not about finding great developers. It's about finding great developers at a lower price.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#72

Post by Iftheshoefits »

grandalf wrote: post #52
bradleyjg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is amazing to me how the same group of people can rail against rent seekers in a thread about uber or airbandb and then turn around in a thread on immigration and act like their own rent seeking is pure and good and right. I guess it is all a matter of whose ox is being gored.

Exactly. What those people don't understand is how much this hampers the kind of ambition and projects that can get built. Unlike Musk's HyperLoop, the barrier for software is not materials and resources, it's simply minds. If you're working on a crappy, bloated codebase it's because some business person likely accurately assumes that a rewrite would be risky and slow (b/c of the supply and quality of labor).

> Unlike Musk's HyperLoop, the barrier for software is not materials and resources, it's simply minds. If you're working on a crappy, bloated codebase it's because some business person likely accurately assumes that a rewrite would be risky and slow (b/c of the supply and quality of labor). No, the business person knows it will cost money to rewrite and simply doesn't want to commit the resources. It almost certainly has nothing to do with the supply and quality of labor.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#73

Post by cubano »

xiaoma wrote: post #17

> So they claim it's because they want to drive down salaries. But if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the the US, where they then paid them the same as they'd have paid an American. Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they're telling the truth: there ar…

Programmer's don't keep them out of jail if and when they do something that may or may not be illegal.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#75

Post by michaelvkpdx »

Part of the reality of founding a company in the United States, and taking advantage of the freedoms and protections being in the USA offers, is that you have to work with the USA labor force.

If you don't like it- well, go international. Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany. Software companies have to live in the same space.

And it's complete and utter BS to suggest that there's no way we can make up for the gap in our education system. You have to invest in the society, and it takes time to train people. Railroads in the 1890's didn't suddenly wake up with a million trained workers at their disposal, and they didn't have the option of importing trained workers from the UK where railroads were booming. Part of the limits of their expansion was the need for training- and when they didn't train, they ended up with dead workers (25,000 out of a force of 1 million killed on the job in 1900 alone).

If someone wants to come to the USA on their own volition, and take their oath of citizenship- fantastic! We should all welcome them. But it is not up to corporations to dictate terms of citizenship at their convenience.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#76

Post by khyryk »

itg wrote: post #19

Read: We don't want to train workers or pay them a good salary. We expect them to know everything beforehand and be content with crappy wages, then wonder why the brightest kids are going into fields like medicine and high finance.

And even then, most of those who are in fact "great programmers" would probably not get offers.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#77

Post by OmarIsmail »

gaius wrote: post #35
tartle wrote: post #28

"I asked the CEO of a startup with about 70 programmers how many more he'd hire if he could get all the great programmers he wanted. He said "We'd hire 30 tomorrow morning." Evidence-based policy proposal at its finest :)

... And he could, if he simply out-bid his competitors.

Businesses die when they run out of money.

Paying your programmers 3-500K/year is a sure fire way to run out of money really quickly.

And while a great programmer is obviously worth it, most companies (at the early stage) have so many external factors that even a great programmer isn't enough, they need the time to iterate and find product market fit. You know the whole lean startup thing. So how do you circle that square?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#78

Post by bwaxxlo »

edw519 wrote: post #41

...and while you can train people to be competent, you can't train them to be exceptional. Why not? Every exceptional programmer I've ever met was unexceptional at one time. Something happened for them to become exceptional. I personally believe that while that "something" is most often "doing", "training" is often a big part of the equation. And that training is more often than not training their beliefs as much as…

You become exceptional by being curious and never satisfied. I don't think you can teach that. I mean, you can blurt it out to people all day but it takes intrinsic motivation to stay awake until 2am because you want to chase some random thing down the rabbit hole.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#79

Post by moocow01 »

How about Silicon Valley first working on actually optimizing the use of the current labor pool by letting in the REAL other 95% of programmers meaning ...

- Anyone over 40

- Anyone who doesn't fit the profile of a 25 year old white male

Until this happens in any real manner, these sort of pleas are just politics as usual for economic gain.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#80

Post by rglullis »

One thing that I don't get about the critics (especially the liberal-inclined) from H1B programs is: even if opening the gates ends up resulting in cheaper labor, what is wrong about that?

If the gates were open, the ones coming here to work for cheap won't be taking your jobs at the next startup fad. They will be working doing the things that Americans don't want to do: improving network infrastructure, doing boring TPS reports in biotech firms, basic IT, local (better) tech support, maybe modernizing your craptastical banking systems. None of the Americans that complain about H1B ever seem to realize that.

You guys seemed perfectly fine to have the Chinese building your railroads and to have the hispanics taking care of your children or to work in the kitchen of your favorite restaurant. So much so that you seem to be okay with giving amnesty every 10-20 years to undocumented immigrants. No need to worry, the status quo will not be challenged.

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