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The Founder Visa

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Founder Visa

#91

Post by endtime »

catz wrote: post #60

There is a simple alternative – remove the stupid restrictions on H1B visas. The restriction that if you loose/quit your job that you have to be out of the country in 60 days is bad for three reasons. 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…

How are H1B visas an alternative? I don't see any reason to believe that if H1Bs were less restrictive then we'd see H1B holders leaving their jobs to create startups. You obviously have personal feelings about the H1B, and I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you, but it really has nothing to do with the idea of a founder's visa.

Comments of the form "the article is loosely related to one of my pet issues, so I'm going to say my schpiel" are not interesting.

For what it's worth, I think the founder's visa is a great idea. I know this sounds corny, but it's an extremely American (entrepreneurial, meritocratic) idea.

Re: The Founder Visa

#92

Post by bokonist »

pg wrote: post #90
bokonist wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is you don't get to control the algorithm. When I interned in the Massachusetts State House, I sat through a meeting discussing the algorithm that decides how much state money each local school district receives. Now I'm sure you or I could come up with a quite elegant algorithm. But the actual algorithm was a complex beast that no staffer at the meeting could begin to understand. It was the evolved product…

I'm suggesting accreditation be decided by the investors themselves, not the government. Works fairly well for universities.

Visas are issued by the government. All my criticisms still apply, even if the government delegates the decision to the investors.

And no, it works terribly for universities ( or rather, it works great for the universities, terribly for the public). For example, the number of medical schools in the country has actual gone from 162 in 1906, to 129 today, despite a three-fold increase in population. The artificial barrier to entry created by accreditation constricts the supply of medical schools, resulting in higher tuition and higher medical costs.

Or consider law schools. The cheapest law school in Massachusetts costs 38K per year for tuition. If you wanted to create new a law school as a startup, think you could create one just as good for much cheaper? I bet you could. It's not like law schools need expensive equipment. But you're not allowed to, thanks to accreditation laws.

Accreditation started off innocently enough - it was just a good housekeeping seal of approval. But then the professional organizations managed to make it illegal to practice at all without a degree from the accredited institution. The bar associations lobbied for laws that made it impossible to practice law if you simply studied on your own and passed the bar, or if you went through a correspondence course. In 2008, Abe Lincoln is out of luck. Now he has to take on 150K of debt in order to practice law.

History shows the slow is indeed slippery. What if your startup accreditation body follows the path the law schools, and in 30 years ends up lobbying Congress to ban all non-accredited startups?

Re: The Founder Visa

#93

Post by shiro »

erlanger wrote: post #85
andreyf wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, who up-votes this junk? Let's see: The INS has their hands full... PG said: 10,000 people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards For comparison, there were 591,050 student and exchange visas granted in 2007 [1]. If the INS can handle checking up on individual students following educations via Universities, they can do the same with 1/200th the number of startups via investment firms. The system would b…

"PG said: 10,000 people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards" Yes, in terms of people. But you fail to understand that it's an entire new process and system that would have to be invented and executed. You just don't think like a con-man. Universities have quite a bit on the line, such as accreditation. A private company has next to nothing on the line. Anyway, here's how I'd do it: 1. First off, I'd need…

I think pg's point of investors accreditation system is that it's not the government you have to cheat, but the group of pre-selected investors. (I'd imagine something similar to professional guilds... you have to be recognized by peers to be in part of the investor group of deciding who can get invested with this visa, for example).

The obstacle I see is that the stake of having authority to say who can get visas for work is very high these days (not like student visas); lots of people are seeking ways to get working visas desperately. So there would be lots of political frictions to introduce investor's accreditation system.

But yet, if politicians are convinced that this is crucial to revitalize the economy (which is probably one of the highest priority items), much of such muddling of power games may be avoided.

Re: The Founder Visa

#94

Post by Kadin »

alain94040 wrote: post #6

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…

I was a bit disappointed that the author of the article didn't address the difference between what he was proposing and the existing investor visas. They seem pretty close, to the point where what he's seemingly asking for could be achieved by tweaking existing programs rather than creating entirely new visas. The intent and purpose of the investor visas are exactly what's being discussed: bringing talented people to the U.S. so they can start businesses that employ Americans and contribute to the economy.

If those programs aren't doing what they're supposed to do, or if they have capital/investment requirements that aren't in line with what modern high-tech companies require (i.e. modern startups don't require as much as the minimum investments for the visas) then we should address that, but I don't think it needs to be done from a blank slate.

(Information on immigration through investment here" rel="nofollow">http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f..., assuming that link is stable.)

Re: The Founder Visa

#95

Post by pg »

bokonist wrote: post #92
pg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suggesting accreditation be decided by the investors themselves, not the government. Works fairly well for universities.

Visas are issued by the government. All my criticisms still apply, even if the government delegates the decision to the investors. And no, it works terribly for universities ( or rather, it works great for the universities, terribly for the public). For example, the number of medical schools in the country has actual gone from 162 in 1906, to 129 today, despite a three-fold increase in population. The artificial barr…

The corruptness of the university accreditation system only makes the threshold unnecessarily high. If that happened with startup investors, it would still be a great improvement over the current situation.

Currently, there are zero investors whose money gets you you a visa. Expanding from zero to an unnecessarily small group would still be an improvement, even it if wasn't optimal.

Re: The Founder Visa

#96

Post by bokonist »

pg wrote: post #95
bokonist wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visas are issued by the government. All my criticisms still apply, even if the government delegates the decision to the investors. And no, it works terribly for universities ( or rather, it works great for the universities, terribly for the public). For example, the number of medical schools in the country has actual gone from 162 in 1906, to 129 today, despite a three-fold increase in population. The artificial barr…

The corruptness of the university accreditation system only makes the threshold unnecessarily high. If that happened with startup investors, it would still be a great improvement over the current situation. Currently, there are zero investors whose money gets you you a visa. Expanding from zero to an unnecessarily small group would still be an improvement, even it if wasn't optimal.

I agree that the immediate effects of the policy would be beneficial. But you have also created a government sponsored body that is now deciding what is a startup and what is not. That is very, very, very dangerous. This organization over time may lobby Congress to actively ban all non-accredited startups. This is exactly the path followed by the law schools, medical schools, architect schools, dentistry schools, interior design schools, etc. The track record is not good.

Re: The Founder Visa

#99

Post by hs »

immigrants who make it big in internet seem to be from young kids who gain permanent residency later

are there any greencard holders having thru h1b (6 years?) and then found startup and be as successful?

Re: The Founder Visa

#100

Post by rys »

I've not had a really detailed read of all the comments, so apologies if I missed it somewhere, but how do you justify it as "a policy that would cost nothing"? Or am I confusing monetary cost with something else?

The rest of the idea seems sane, though, as long as the application for the visa made it clear what the intention was, on top of "I want to found a company or companies please".

Non-US resident here, for what it's worth.

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