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Comment by sbr464 | Hacker News Reader

A side benefit that I hadn’t really considered but seems obvious; By taking in skilled workers from other countries, it’s like poaching talent from another company. Then they aren’t contributing to or building companies in their former country. Not sure the scale you would need to make a dent, but is there a name for this?

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Brain Drain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight

A side benefit? It's been USA's primary competitive advantage for decades - brain draining the cream of the crop from a 5 billion population.

It's incredibly naive to think it was ever unintentional.

The beneficiary of pretty much every brain drain for the last 100 years. No wonder such a strong economy came of it.

And the network effects of having some of the smartest people in the world together in proximity where they are able to cooperate and produce real innovation.

California is probably THE focal point of this braininess.

And yet, California has an above average poverty level, below average per-capita education spending and achievement and all-too-frequent state budget problems.

How can this brain-driven economy coexist with this poverty and inequality? It's not the result I would expect. How do we explain this? More important - how do we reduce the poverty and spread the benefits of this brain-driven economy more evenly?

Brain Drain is a real issue in some parts of the world.

I grew up in Spain and got all my higher education for free. The state essentially spent large amount of money in me, hoping that I would give it back to the economy as a skilled worker.

After the 2008 crisis I moved like thousands others in my same situation. Now other countries will benefit from the ROI that my home country made on me instead.

How do you feel about that?

The choice of word is interesting: encouraging immigration of skilled workers to the US has the benefit of preventing them from participating in the development of their home country.

Short term, sure it's beneficial for the US, but I don't think it's a good idea to reflect in a vacuum or only thinking short term. Emergent countries being able to develop is beneficial for everybody.

What about the immigrants? It's a huge benefit to them!

Of course, but that's not what the original message was pointing out. Comparing countries stealing other countries skilled workers and companies poaching employees is not a good idea IMO, that's all.

It's the same thing, it's just the barriers are different.

Silicon Valley is successful partly because noncompetes don't get enforced in California. It makes things slightly worse in the short term for each company but better for both the individuals and the world overall.

The US has been successful partly because it's attracted so many skilled immigrants. It makes things slightly worse for other countries in the short term (though remittances!) but is better for both the individuals and the world overall.

Citation? Brain drain, so that Silicon Valley can produce various ride-sharing and world-changing pizza delivery apps, is better for the world?

I certainly think it's better for the rich as it drives the stock market up, but a blanket "better for the world overall" is certainly an interesting take.

> The choice of word is interesting: encouraging immigration of skilled workers to the US has the benefit of preventing them from participating in the development of their home country.

In theory, yes. However, in practice, "participating in the development" can mean working for crappy employers, for a pittance, on some ass backward php/delphi/whatever system that has been accruing technical debt for the past decade. Not all developing countries are friendly for entrepreneurs either(bureaucracy, corruption, taxes, limited access to credit), so options may be limited.

In many cases, they wouldn't be able to contribute that much, but they may be highly skilled, and the United States works as a force multiplier.

Source: came from a third world country, had a company for a couple of years, spent another couple of years trying to officially close that company after operations had ceased.

National (or oligarchical) competition is far from dead, despite the vacuous, maudlin bromides about global unity that will never be true. Why would you expect the US (or anyone else) not to drain other countries of their workers if it suits them? The emphasis is on "if". South Korea was transformed from a backwards rice farming country into a financially prosperous one not by draining Korea of Koreans, but in no small part because it was in the US's interest.

Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE

Human capital flight a.k.a brain drain/gain.

Brain Drain.

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