Dear British Government: You've Screwed Up (Startup) Visas Badly
blog.awesomezombie.com
blog.awesomezombie.com
The startup visa scheme is another such proposition, but at a grander level. Banks want entrepreneurs that won't give up on a bad idea, but would instead keep toiling away rather than have to move their entire family back to their home country.
No one wants to speak from the perspective of an employee because, frankly, the biggest proponents have never been ideal employees. What kind of a talented engineer would want to put themselves into a situation where they lose their freedom to switch careers or engage in a personal idea? So sure, there is a shortage of talent, but not because of a lack of immigrants.
what bugs me the most on my h1b visa is that the time youre in the country you cant build a life for yourself. first its 3 years, than you can extend another three years but after those six years they kick you out. of course after five years you can apply for a green card but that takes two years. not to speak of the cut down on time when you switch jobs. i recently changed my employer after two years. now my last year of the first part of the visa got cut out and directly extended. giving me together five years in the country.
now what do i do in three years? in sept 2013 my visa ends. no extension. how can you live like that? knowing you leave your life, friends, everything behind in three years.
and the whole new investor start up blah visa is a punch in my face. when you generate a milliondollar revenue or find an investor that invests a million or more you get citizenship. come again? citizenship? i lead start ups for my last employer which gave me an astronomical salary around 300-600k a year and the start ups generated under the companies umbrella way more than 20m this year. where the FUCK is my citizenship?
the whole topic just makes me angry.
"The spontaneous rise of Silicon Roundabout might have persuaded the government to leave well alone. Instead, David Cameron recently unveiled a plan to support it. As well as tinkering with the legal framework in which such businesses operate—by creating updated “entrepreneur visas” to bypass ill-judged new immigration restrictions, for example—the government has persuaded technology titans such as Google and Cisco to invest. Soon BT will bring super-fast broadband to the area; McKinsey, a consultancy, will share management expertise."[1]
"McKinsey, a consultancy, will share management expertise"—well then. I don't know how the tech start-ups will contain their jubilation.
Was it? I was under the impression that the whole idea was pushed by the government and officially planned from the start...
"God help them."
Protectionism, my arse. These policies are fueled by xenophobia, the like of which even respectable Brits frequently agree, even if they say nothing about it in public (I've had these rows with people in my own family and social groups who I'd never had believed could be so xenophobic).
It was evident throughout the election campaign that being "tough" on immigration was perceived as more important than being "fair".
Not every developer wants to be a startup founder.
I'm going through a tier 2 application at the moment and it is hell under the new UK government.
Quite a few from the EU, but a lot from Commonwealth countries (NZ, Aus, SA).
I've always found the mix very strange.
1. Startups can't recruit overseas students or highly skilled workers anymore without applying for a tier 2 sponsorship license. Talking about lead time of 1 1/2 months and jumping through admin hoops for approval.
2. Local students are starting school with a bigger debt due to increases in tuition fees. Now if I was a young talented programmer with a big debt (average debt of a student now is around £18K. I estimate this to increase to about £24K), the glowing lights of the city looks very attractive.
Might the reason not be that the difference lies with the people and not the environment?
However, there are other reasons that deter people from launching start-ups in the UK, 1) it's expensive - London is very expensive, general living costs are higher than the US 2) The City is a disproportionately large draw for UK graduates, finance is a larger percent of the economy, compared to say the US.
There probably is an element of that; British people tend to be less entrepreneurial than Americans.
So I'm not sure if higher debt is going to sway people's career choices (especially given the way the debt is structured means you can make lower payments if you're earning less). Although it is one of the major arguments in favour of a graduate tax as opposed to higher tuition fees.
I guess we'll have to wait and see what impact it has in practice.
Fees are trebeling to £9000 a year add in maitenance loan costs and you're looking nearer to £50k. How do you calculate that the average debt will only increase to £24k.
I think the increase will be more than that. Tuition fees are due to rise from the current £3000 to a maximum of £9000 pa. This is on top of a loan for living expenses of £4000. So a typical student debt may rise to £39k. Furthermore the government is increasing the interest rates on loans.
All this together will make a well-paying job more attractive to a programmer having just left university than a startup.
And you wonder why a Conservative government would want to eliminate them? The fact explains itself.
Do these apply only to foreigners from outside Europe? I read that EU member nationals can form a startup in any EU country.
Your visa being tied to an employer can pretty easily turn into exploitation, if you end up picking the wrong employer.
But seriously, even worse is the appearance of how you're being treated. Why would I want to live there under those conditions?
This measure can't really attract talent. I don't see what good developers - in their right mind - would accept those terms. There are other better options.
Source:http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/workingintheuk/tier2/