Investors in Silicon Valley care a lot about status and pedigree. A foreigner that can afford elite credentials is far more likely to get funding than a poor local.
And of course H1B visas drive down wages. This is basic supply and demand.
Investors in Silicon Valley care a lot about status and pedigree. A foreigner that can afford elite credentials is far more likely to get funding than a poor local.
And of course H1B visas drive down wages. This is basic supply and demand.
They usually need to get an H-1B visa as part of the immigration process. You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous.
> A foreigner that can afford elite credentials
Many of their families probably can barely afford to pay for college in the U.S., but they scoop up the money to do so, in hope of a better life for their offspring. The United States however subjects them to an arbitrary H-1B lottery that decides if they get to stay in the country after graduation (and OPT).
> far more likely to get funding than a poor local.
Are you seriously suggesting that investors in Silicon Valley discriminate in favor of people with college degrees over poor uneducated people?
Most families don't have $500,000 to just invest in order to get their child a green card. A lot of international students I know worked part-time on-campus (permitted on the F-1 student visa) in order lessen the burden on their parents. Their families struggled to put together the money to pay for college in the U.S.
I went to Stony Brook University, and between the time I came in and graduated, tuition had risen by over 50% for international students. (State law did not restrict tuition hikes for foreign students.)
It's condescending of you to suggest an EB-5. Like "Let them eat cake": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
> You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous.
The parent you're replying to never said most families could afford that. The parent was indicating that you can buy your way into America, which you in fact can do. The wealthy upper class can buy their way in, and do this all the time (see: wealthy Chinese buying their way into the US).
For example, many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard. Is that reflective of the general population of H1-B visa holders? If not, can the conclusions drawn from the very small number of $1B+ startups be used to make policy decisions about the vast majority of skilled immigrants?
You make a very good point here. The thing is that it is absolutely impossible to filter or select for future $1B+ startup founders.
Most immigrant tech startup founders in the Bay Area first come to the US as foreign students. They then get a job like most people, but also have to go through a long and difficult struggle with the U.S. immigration system in order to get a green card. Only after getting a green card, do most start a company (because self-sponsorship with your own company is prohibited on an H-1B visa). For their first 10 years or so in the U.S., they have no laurels to show, and nothing that sets them apart from a typical good software engineer at Google. There is no data point from which you predict that X person is going to become a future successful startup founder.
I am another example of this. Right now, I don't have much to show besides my work experience, some CS research I did in college, and a few GitHub projects. I'd definitely like to start a company some day. I think I am somewhat representative of the general population of H1-B visa holders. That I might some time in the future be far more successful, and a huge blessing to this country's economy, and to its people, cannot be positively predicted based on where I am in life today.
> many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard
There is no official data that shows you where H-1B visa holders went for college. But I can take an educated guess. Everyone that I've met that is on an H-1B visa graduated from a US school. I would guess at least half of all H-1B visa holders studied in the US.
If you filtered by the ranking of the university that a foreign student attended, and said that only graduates from prestigious widely-famous universities are allowed to stay in this country, and every else from lesser universities, should get kicked out, then I would be kicked out along with them. My guess is that the majority of immigrant startup founders didn't go to Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc.
While you are correct about official data, my comment concerns the report. The report identifies immigrant founders by college degree, including John Collison, Daniel Saks, Mario Schlosser, and Michelle Zatlyn, all from Harvard.
4/60 immigrant founders of $1B+ startups have a Harvard education. I do not think 6.7% of H1-B visa holders have a Harvard education.
The broader policy question raised by the report however is about the current extremely restrictive low limit of 85,000 on H-1B visas, which are crucial for any immigrant student to be able to stay in the US. The report tries to show one way in which immigrants are helpful, and yes it does focus very much on the most successful immigrants. That doesn't mean they don't have a valid point.
85,000 is less than 0.03% of the US population. Australia, with a population of 23 million, issued 120,000 skilled work visas in 2013. That is 0.5%. Nearly every other first-world country has a higher rate of skilled worker immigration than the United States. We keep it artificially down with the quotas. We determine the fate and future of an immigrant student in this country with a lottery, which to most people might sound like a cruel joke.
[1] http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi...
With your second sentence, are you trying to argue that about half of H-1B visa holder population went to famous colleges? Otherwise, what's your point?
My point is that the report gives anecdotes and numbers that cannot be used for sound policy decisions.
Anecdotes are nothing new. 100 years ago we would have read how Andrew Carnegie, son of poor Scottish weavers, became one of the wealthiest people in the US through his innovative steel company. While it's a valid point that immigrants can be helpful, it's also a valid point that the US has more than 100,000 citizens - neither point is all that useful. Or do you really think that most of the target audience won't be able to think of dozens of helpful contributions by immigrants, so need a reminder?
Numbers that cannot be used for policy decisions are also not new. I earlier give an example of the report "Most high tech companies are founded by founded by First/2nd gen immigrants", which is another statement that cannot be used to make a policy decision.
So you tell me, based on this report, are immigrants over- or under- represented as (co)founders of $1B+ startups? Should we have different policy changes if they are under-represented, vs. if they are over-represented? Or what if the number of immigrant founders is what we would except from population statistics?
Your views, frequently stated, are pro-immigration. That's fine. I support that, and I speak as an immigrant who is in turn the child of an immigrant.
But this report cannot be used to support your viewpoint other than with the trivial observation that there are ways in which immigrants are helpful.
They don't have to go through the H-1B process. Generally, wealthy people are people don't just have good jobs and money, they also have connections, are attractive, and hold citizenship from wealthy countries, all things that make it much easier to come to the US.
Their connections allow them a number of ways into the US (Everything from an A visa for family members of foreign government employees, to L visas for inter company transfers, to an O visa for various types of talent). If they're attractive enough it's common that they'd marry an American (or commit immigration fraud, which is common enough). Lastly, if they're from a wealthy country, their chances of winning the diversity lottery are actually quite high.
The paths into the US are convoluted, but numerous.
We're not talking about the top 2% or 3%, but the 95% of the citizens of these rich first-world countries. Not folks who have $500k+ just lying around. One of the peope I met at FWD.us was a Canadian citizen, but he couldn't even get a TN visa because the TN occupation list didn't cover his field. See this article for more stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/large-companies-game-h-...
Also, the O visa is not "for various types of talent". It is an "extraordinary ability" visa that is really difficult to get. The only viable employment-based pathways to the US are the H-1B visa, the L-1 (intra-company transfer), and for rare talented few, the O-1 visa. The L-1 is a horrible visa where you can't change jobs and are deported if you ever get laid off. If you want the ability to change jobs, your only option is the H-1B visa[1].
I've looked carefully into the visa rules, and it as though Congress wanted to make it as hard as possible for people to immigrate into this country. They've built a incredibly complex system with numerous restrictions and conditions, and Damocles swords.
[1] H-1B visa holders lose legal status the very day after their employment ends. H-1B visa holders can change jobs, but they must be careful to never get laid off. It's insane. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11188339
http://goldsea.com/Text/index.php?id=6205
Sehat Sutardja. One of many such examples.
All you needed to do was fly your pregnant wife over to get American citizenship...but that's changing now.
This statement is steeped in such ignorance. You get absolutely no immigration benefit whatsoever by having a U.S. citizen child.
If you are talking about a child's citizenship, then FYI, birthright citizenship (part of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution) has not been repealed.
The H-1B is pretty much the only way one can stay after graduation (and OPT).
So your point is moot.
There's a joke in my community between the younger generation that we all had two choices after high school. You could choose to be a lawyer or doctor. If your parents were kind, then you could be an engineer.
I find this offensive, as an immigrant. Also, my mother (and sister) worked in a sweat shop (they needle thread tags on imported/fake clothes underneath a laundromat) to put food on the table while going to school. My mother didn't "sacrifice" everything for us, she worked hard; became a programmer; and didn't allow my sibling and I to work less then her.
> There's a joke in my community between the younger generation that we all had two choices after high school. You could choose to be a lawyer or doctor. If your parents were kind, then you could be an engineer.
First time I had a steak, I was 18 years old and working as a waiter...the steak was $5 if you were staff. Prior, my understanding of meat product was salami and hot dogs.
It's great when you have the ability to go to law/med school but that doesn't work for all folks. Immigrants have a tireless work ethic because they know what it's like to be hungry. As a kid, I slept on top of a pig pen (it was the coolest place on the farm) and waited two hours to get milk for my family (before they woke up). That strength, commitment, and desire is what drives immigrants to achieve. Joking about law school is not really an option where I come from.
> I find this offensive, as an immigrant.
I am baffled as to what part of that is offensive. That immigrants choose to immigrate and put in the hard work to make that work out? Or are you objecting to the ideas that there are high barriers to immigration?
Maybe I am just misreading something, but I am confused.
Also a lot of immigrants are war refugees or US allies that had to be rescued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_people#U.S._and_Laotian_...
That's what parent means by self-selecting, which is being used in the sense described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias - a perfectly innocuous meaning.
(I say this as someone who has no pony in this race - I'm neither a resident, nor citizen, nor etc of the US)
Would you want to go to the US for a high paying software job? Yes!
That's self selection. There is nothing bad about this but ignoring this leads to biased statistics.
Unless those H1B holders create 10 extra work positions on average, then H1B visas will drive up wages. Basic supply and demand.
Both your statement and mine are incorrect or, at least, incomplete. There's no such thing as "basic" supply and demand.
In the short run. The increased growth associated with them would typically lead to a general rise in wages in the long run. They also offset the tendency for companies to just move overseas.
They cause $515 billion in losses for native workers and $565 billion gains for native businesses. Look at the chart on page 9
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/03-16-16%20Bo...
Only 9% of economists disagree with the statement: "The average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year."
http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...
0% of economists disagree with the statement: "The average US citizen would be better off if a larger number of highly educated foreign workers were legally allowed to immigrate to the US each year."
http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...
EDIT, since we're at the reply limit: Borjas is kind of heterodox, and without the chance now to do a better review of his literature I'm inclined to sided with the fairly overwhelming consensus. Picking two graphs that look similar isn't really a convincing argument, and 'redistribution' implies that this is a zero-sum change.
My position generally is that H-1B's (and whatever *-1B you suggest) would generally be good for the economy, though suffer from implementation issues and unnecessary restrictions.
Actually read the article I linked and he discusses how the standard economics literature has completely misrepresented the impact of immigration on native workers.
>Finally, Peri and Yasenov look at workers aged 16-61, and this is a particularly weird data manipulation. Among adult workers, a high school dropout is someone who lacks a high school diploma. But that definition, when applied to teenagers, means that 16, 17, and 18-year-olds who are sophomores, juniors, or seniors in high school are classified as high school dropouts because they do not yet have that diploma. Let me emphasize: All teenagers, whose earnings consist mainly of what they get in part-time and summer jobs, are part of the low-skill group. There are so many high school students who are being lumped with the real high school dropouts that they fatally contaminate the analysis.
Also when people talk about the wealth inequality in the US and how wages have been stagnant for 30 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_...
Look at the chart and notice how in the 1980s immigration begins to ramp up
http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Notice that in 1979 wealth inequality skyrockets, which is logically consistent with the idea that immigration is wealth redistribution from displaced workers to their employers.
edit: look at the graph and compare the gap in wealth inequality. In 1995 when immigration is slown down wealth inequality stays constant. When immigration is ramped up, inequality grows like crazy.
edit: for whatever it's worth I made the connection between wealth inequality and immigration. so try not to use that to say my source is bad
* Technology, which will happen with or without immigration.
* Globalization, which will happen with or without immigration. Make it hard for people to immigrate, and companies will eventually open branches elsewhere.
And there may be specific problems with the Borjas 2015 paper in any case: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21801#fromrss
therefore any economic consensus about immigrants is not relevant to the H-1B.
This common misunderstanding is exactly what NFAP, the right-leaning think tank who wrote this study, is trying to exploit.
H1B visas are an attempt at substitution. But it's not clear this works. Had I met happy, well-adjusted folks who were here formerly on an H1B, I'd be much less inclined to say that. I've mainly met angry people.
WRT SiVa/SanFrancisco, the costs of living have massively outstripped even techie salaries.
There is no programmer shortage. It's either a Machiavellian ploy or bad reading of tea leaves.
If programmers cost too much, then there would be all sorts of accounting tricks to salve this wound. Quite the opposite is true. For every hour you spend programming, some multiple ( much > 1 ) of your employer's "burdened run rate" is attributed to it.
The failure of the overall culture to come to terms with the things needed to produce software are reasonably obvious if you will only look.
What I'm not so clear on is what attracts educated people of means to emigrate to the US [and AU and UK] from otherwise stable mature economies? We're better off for them, just a question as to what attracts them given they also have opportunities in their home countries.
No matter where you are, the US can be a step up -- as is indicated by the OP. These are exactly the immigrants you're asking about, and they came for a shot at exactly this, which they couldn't get back at home.
Incidentally, here's a cool infographic: http://graphics.wsj.com/global-growth/
If anything, I would ask other programmers from Spain why in the world aren't they leaving!
So big question. WHY are software developers paid so low in 1st world European countries, and so high in the US? Clearly a good software developer can save a company 100k, 200k, 500k Euros a year (think of replacing a bunch of office workers with a computer program). Why don't programmers get a bigger chunk of the pie?
GDP says the countries are fairly similar. Programming is a high skill job. Why would it pay so different in different locations?
A lot of them are, if not downtrodden, at the least unable to earn a wage in the labor markets that is commensurate with their skill set.
Jeff Bezos and Joshua Schachter aside, there's a probably a reason why relatively few successful wall street folks quit to do a startup.
Right, but these things sometimes go a bit beyond that with 'externalities', which can be both positive and negative, and various other economic factors that come into play.
Sometimes there are 'vicious circles', but also 'virtuous circles'. More people, more talent, more expertise, more jobs, and so on.
I know this is a very common path.
Regarding the class thing: my grandparents were blue collar workers who never went to high school, my parents were engineers.
Back when Musk would've applied, that wasn't a problem, he would've gotten an H1-B pretty easily.
While you can go straight from OPT to green card, getting an H1-B first is much better since it's dual intent, so you're not prevented from traveling during the green card application (which you would be on OPT).
Professor Norm Matloff presents a detailed critique of the H-1B visa : http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html ... "The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap, de facto indentured labor."
I'm not sure how lean, garage startups feel about Venture Capital's special access to guest workers for their competing "Billion Dollar Startups". I would guess that their views are little more nuanced than the Wall Street Journal's take on it.
The biggest H1-B employers , are in fact, outsourcing firms : http://www.businessweek.com/table/08/0305_h1b.htm . Their frequent editorials often fail to mention this.
It's obvious that whoever you are, you haven't actually tried to get to know anything about these pesky foreigners'(who probably work with you on a daily basis) personal life and background. If you had, you'd know that a profile like this
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3195384/Pictured-pai...
is actually a rule rather than an exception.
When I worked in tech, I knew exactly one engineer from a low class background (American). It was eye opening seeing first hand how rare people of non educated backgrounds are in tech.
I'm no exception, all but one of my grand parents was educated.
"Yet simply getting there was difficult. His parents, who had always ensured their two boys got the best education they could afford, ended up withdrawing £1,000 - more than Regunatha earned in a year - to put him on the plane."
Rest assured, Sundar wasn't some rich foreigner (as in the fevered imagination of GP commenter @staunch) who's parents got him admission to top schools to ease his path in the world.
But here's the kicker, of all the Indian immigrants I know in the valley (source: am one myself), a majority come from backgrounds humbler than Sundars. For one thing, being born to technically educated parents is not at all typical. Not even among the population of immigrant software engineers. I don't know what your definition of "low class" is. But if you're looking for software engineers who grew up in one room houses with 2-3 siblings who's parents were barely making ends meet while providing the best education they could to their kids, just walk upto any group of 4-5 Indian immigrants you see in the valley. You'll find at least one or two such folks in every such group (source: am one myself).