Startups and immigration
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H1-B is a dual intent visa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#H-1B_and_path_to_per...
What decent person would put up with this humiliation uless you are from a really horrid country that you don't want to go back to.
The software job market is Canada is kinda terrible (I am a recent graduate looking for a job - not to mention the salaries in Canada can't compete with those in US)
The Canadian Job market is pretty tough.
Never stepped foot in Canada before then. Now I can stay here forever.
Citizenship after just 3 years.
1) If you want to H1B yourself, you have to demonstrably give up control of your company to a US citizen. What if none of the co-founders are American? What if you're a solo founder?
2) The B1 visa only gives you 6 months to figure out an alternative. It's unclear what the alternative is, and why add that stress during what is a critical time for your startup?
3) If you have $100K you could go for an E2 visa, but it does not lead to a green card. You have to renew every 2 year. Exiting your company? Get ready to exit the country. It also requires you to create a few (single digits) jobs within the first three years, but that seems less onerous
4) My lawyer suggested that an O1 would be unrealistic unless you've been recognized publically somehow.
5) If you have $500k to $1M, you could apply for an EB. I don't, so can't comment too much here.
Fianally, across the board there's an issue of time and money. Dealing with this stuff will be a big headache that will distract from your company.
Disclaimer: IANL
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/entrepreneur-visa-guide [2] Personal consultation with an immigration lawyer
And your problem is that you can't stay forever when the business fails?
Like you can't blow out a candle without it being lit in the first place.
Most of the investors that get involved are likely to be in the US, they may have limited legal avenues to pursue if the company fails due to negligence or fraud and the founder moves back home.
Depending on the financial status of the founder, the US might have to choose between providing social support or paying for deportation.
I'm trying to compare it to the potential upside of any immigrant category. Entrepreneurs present some downside, but no more than any other visa/immigrant category. One heck of a lot more upside though, IMO.
I moved from SF back to Mumbai, India(my home country) earlier this year and don't regret it one bit. There's a lot happening here and there's a boom in the startup space in general in the country.
For the US, I definitely see a pretty big negative impact in the long run if the immigration system continues to remain as messed up as it is at the moment. I truly hope some kind of a startup visa is implemented so that future graduates, thinking of starting up do not have to fight against getting kicked out.
I got offered a senior position (distinguished engineer) with a large San Jose networking vendor, and looking into the H-1B circus put me off.
Perhaps when I was freshly graduated I might have tolerated it, but as someone with a family and lots of very good opportunities already here in Europe (and being able to re-locate with minimal fuss to another EU country (unless we vote ourselves out)), its a nobrainer to stay here. Add to that the whole potential deportation if you were to lose your job, and an average family home in the valley costing well above $1 million, nah, I think I will leave it thanks.
I guess the above is why so few Europeans comes to the US now, and 88% of H-1B's are from India.
I'm sure Tata abusing the system has nothing to do with it
I see this pattern so many times in the US, blaming parties involved instead of the original wrongdoers (e.g. "Facebook and Google are so evil", yet the NSA and USG are out of the argument completely). That even a fairly educated crowd such as the one on HN falls for these cheap tactics is a great proof that in fact this technique works great for manipulating masses of people. (bonus example: the broken bipartisan and electoral college systems – all the talk is about how horrible Hillary and Trump are, instead of maybe taking steps to fixing the system itself | bonus video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k)
Compare numbers of H1Bs in relation to number of employees and see how Tata compares with others
Not to mention most "Java engineers" are a dime a dozen
This is my train of thought as well. I am here in the US on a student visa about to graduate in spring. Originally, I was thinking about going the H1B route, but the more and more I learn about it, the less I want to bother with it. I have a EU passport, so I guess I am less doomed than maybe an Indian or so. The problem with H1B is that you can't build yourself a life here. How can you create a family and buy a house if you have to worry constantly about deportation? No thanks. Europe might have a lower pay, but I am willing to pay that price for a peace of mind. Plus all my family is in Europe.
Personal anecdata:
I'm Canadian. I have two degrees from UWaterloo (CS & Math), have been on the founding team of three major exits (one "unicorn"), and have a Harvard MBA. I've lived in the US, mostly under TN status, for fifteen years. (Unlike H1-B, TN status is not dual-intent, and does not allow immigration.)
I'm starting a new company now in Canada. Labor-intensive, probably creating a few hundred good jobs in the first year. I'd prefer to start it in the US, preferably Nevada, but have no acceptable way to legally do so.
This was frustrating for a while, but I'm over it. Europe & Asia are operationally more complex to serve, but that's less overhead than immigration. And I've learned the rest of the world has just as much opportunity (and probably more available investment!) than the US.
I'm just one person, but I've seen this play out five or six times among my peer group alone. If you're a non-citizen entrepreneur with valley/NYC connections or US startup experience, I strongly recommend taking that knowledge and competing in the bigger global pool.
As the global economy flattens, the odds are growing every year that the next megacorp in the US market won't be American. The government should be fighting that trend, not doing everything in its power to accelerate it.
edit: "no legal way" => "no acceptable legal way". Anything is possible.
Completely understand if you couldn't be bothered at this point though. What a loss for the US.
O-1A: very hard to get in business without either a letter from a senator/governor or a long history of speaking gigs (according to my immigration lawyer).
The other (and apparently more common) way business folks get O-1 approval is an endorsement from a high-level government official. My lawyer was reasonably confident that if I could secure financing and demonstrate potential this would be possible, however I'm not comfortable working that hard for that long only to be held up on the whims of a senator in an election year, particularly since I couldn't incorporate without having status.
It's frustrating but understandable. The UCIS has no way to evaluate "Extraordinary Ability", so they can only go off your perceived position relative to your peers.
Both of those options were suggested by my lawyers, and once you realize it's possible and common one starts seeing it everywhere.
If was telling the truth that he has founded and exited several technology companies including one worth over a billion dollars, then there are any number of ways he could found a business in the US: E-2, EB-5, and yes the O-1A.
Being a founding engineer doesn't mean as much as you'd think to a non-technical audience, I have zero chance at an O1.
EB-5 requires me to be putting in 1MM$ of my own money. That's significant for me and more importantly not needed for the business.
E2 is the best bet, and I discussed this at length with counsel. The non-dual intent (same as TN) nature of the status though will put me in exactly the same situation in a few years. Expecting me to invest in the country, while not allowing me to put down roots, is ridiculous and not fair to my family.
Also, I do realize that it's technically possible to apply for citizenship while on TN/E2, but that prevents international travel. I need to be in Canada regularly to care for my parents.
edit: modifying original post to weaken "no legal way" to "no acceptable legal way". Anything is possible.
E2 absolutely agree it just feels like deferring the problem to a later date. A lot of exposure for not as much in return.
I think the bottom line is you don't need to be in the US as much as you needed to before, given your track record. Here the US should need/want you more than the other way round.
L-1A is probably quite doable though and it's dual intent. You need to wait a year, but that may have passed already anyway.
An L-1A is an option a year from now (I've only recently incorporated), but it's hard to build a sufficiently large company to satisfy the requirements to sponsor without putting down enough roots that it's no longer worthwhile moving.
I think you've nailed it though with:
> I think the bottom line is you don't need to be in the US as much as you needed to before, given your track record. Here the US should need/want you more than the other way round.
It's just not worth it to go through the contortions and hassle required to stay and start a company in the US. In a connected economy I can get the full value of the education & networks I've picked up in the states from any first-world country, and create value there.
I think in an immigration context it's not so much about "creating jobs", but "transferring labour to new jobs in this country (and not another)". Another perspective is that the economy is changing anyways, so having the agents of that change locally will keep better (value-creation) jobs, and profits generated by innovation, at home; and lesser (value-extraction) jobs abroad.
However, in a more macro-economic sense, jobs are created all the time through innovation and new business. Wealth (and, by extension, employment) is demonstrably not zero-sum. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, described wealth as "the annual produce of the land and labour of the society". When we take ore from the earth or create new products there is more in our economy than there was before. More workers earn more in the production of that value and purchase more with those earnings.
More empirically, the population of the world has been growing at a tremendous clip, yet there isn't mass unemployment. In the US, population has been more steady, but employment has ebbed and flowed. In a global context employment rates seem to be roughly in sync, expanding and contracting without homeostasis, so something is clearly happening.
There are never absolutes; many entrepreneurs do deliver investor value by a net sacrifice of jobs. Smarter people than I have determined that of all avenues to job creation, entrepreneurs are the most effective. ( http://ftp.iza.org/dp3014.pdf ).
I'm not sure if that's helpful, but I used to have similar questions until being walked through the math by a particularly inspiring economics prof. I'm rambling here more because I think it's a fascinating (and thoroughly non-obvious) question than because i have any real answers.
Right, but nobody chooses to say "we're in this business to deliver investor value by a net sacrifice in jobs".
That's the real answer: one lets you sound like a captain of industry, the other a scrupulous robber baron.
Once it might have been safe to assume that Uber was only going to destroy the taxi industry and transfer those jobs to uninsured/underpaid freelancers. Instead, it's resulted in fewer people driving, and taxi jobs seem to be minimally affected (so far...).
Ultimately, entrepreneurship is widely recognized as the most effective net job creation engine, so it's probably safe to say that one is creating jobs when one starts a small business in the absence of a good argument to the contrary.
My brother has to leave his job this month and move back home, after 4 years at UIUC and 3 years in the Bay Area because he chose to work at startups (instead of the large tech companies) and both years the lottery system failed him.
Google and your startup both put in a single application per person for an H-1, and at the end of the day spend more for the H-1 candidate than they would for a local hire (citizen/green card), which is how the system should work.
Yes, country of nationality does make a difference to DV lottery.
1.) H-1B relies on a lottery system: with a 0.3 to 0.5 chance depending on some factors,
2.) and you need an independent board of directors,
3.) and you can't be a majority stakeholder.
Not to mention once you get one, if your startup goes to ground, you have a month to find another job or risk being deported. Most startup founders in early life can't afford this.
What US needs is a robust startup visa: Startup founders that have x revenue or investment $$ can come in and work, not H-1B or other diversity visa hacks. It's not so hard, Canada has a pretty decent startup visa program.
Even though it enjoys bi-partisan support, it seems to get stuck in various committees every time it's introduced in Senate and left to expire.
It looks like it is fair from a panacea - I haven't yet consulted a lawyer, but based on internet research, it seems like it can be hard to find a legitimate (e.g.: non-scammy) EB-5 Visa project, and the wait times for EB-5 can fairly long. But at least you aren't tied to an employer, and can do whatever you want as long as your investment works out and creates the 10 jobs.
Bear in mind that these projects are often not funded through traditional means and ergo are more risky.
Can we please get over this idea that founders conjure jobs out of thin air. Startups and the jobs they create fill a niche in the economy. That niche is the product of the wider world, not the whim of a founder. Even where a startup does create apparently "new" jobs, they often result in other jobs disappearing elsewhere (see uber v. taxis). Bringing in foreign investment is great. But we don't need to treat well-funded founders as a special class beyond the numerous advantages that already come with being well-funded.
I would hate to be the new hire at a "startup" which turns out to be an immigration dodge, a means of getting a group of founders the necessary documentation. There are already other visa categories for such things (EB-5).
Sure, but practically if not letting a founder enter the country and create a startup means those jobs won't happen, then how does it change the argument for more startup-friendly immigration at all? Are you saying that enough startups with immigrating founders are removing jobs elsewhere like Uber to make it a net negative?
> There are already other visa categories for such things (EB-5).
How about for the foreign founders who don't have $1mm to throw around? I can't say I have data on this, but I suspect $1mm of funds/founder is not reasonable for a lot of startups.
If Uber was founded in Toronto or London or Shanghai, are you sure that Lyft wouldn't have crushed them?
Would that work under the L1 requirements?