My Wild Journey into the United States, and a Few Tips for Future Canadian YC’ers | Hacker News Reader

My Wild Journey into the United States, and a Few Tips for Future Canadian YC’ers

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29 pointsparker33 comments

A few years ago I went to work in the Valley on a TN visa. You couldn't get that visa as a programmer (though programmers were what the US needed). Programmers, in fact, were explicitly off the list, and if you said you were going to write code it was cause for immediate rejection. Your job had to be "systems analyst". That was on the list. So I got a job offer as a "systems analyst".

I have a math degree not CS, and was expecting that to be a bit of an issue. It did indeed come up. The INS officer looked at me in that suspicious way that minor security officials have and asked, very slowly: "How does your degree in mathematics qualify you to be a systems analyst?"

I replied, very slowly, "The company wants me to use my mathematical background to analyse their system."

His response: "OK". That was the end of the interview.

US immigration policy is awful. I spent four years in a dead-end cube-land job waiting for my Green Card before I could join a startup.

I agree with the hints at the end of the post. I would add that having a PhD did help me a couple of times, so if you have one, make sure people know about it.

The only two countries that I've had difficulty entering on business trips are the US and the UK. In my experience they appear to be concerned more with people having recourse to public funds and jobs rather than terrorism.

There's something particularly arbitrary about the process at the US border though. I've traveled to the US for meetings from Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal and I've been refused entry twice -- both in Vancouver (which is also my home town). The reasons weren't entirely clear but at least one of the times they had simply left me sitting until there were no more flights. The other time there was an exceptionally high number of people detained so it's possible they were concerned with something else altogether.

re: the beard. Young beards are probably interpreted as an indication more of slovenliness than extremist sympathies. It's part of the mandate at the US and UK borders to weed out the cunning, young beards in seek of a fresh, clean-shaven start.

Honestly, the beard thing has nothing to do with religion. Immigration officials, like all minimum wage dictators (and most people generally, unfortunately) still often have the mistaken impression that suit and tie = money, bearded and scruffy = poor. It is a whole other question why some of the worst paid people feel such a need to look down on others.

One thing that may help is not to call YC a "program." We stopped calling it that a long time ago, because it gives people the wrong impression.

What is the preferred term then?

Depends on the context. The most common is to talk about the summer or winter funding cycle.

What I'd tell an immigration official is that I was going to work with some investors who had agreed to invest in my startup. I am not an expert in what to tell immigration officials, though.

He's not kidding about the beard thing. When I was 22 I went on a six-week round-the-world trip without packing a razor. By the end I had a terrible unkempt beard, and was getting "randomly" selected for extra searches at every airport.

That's funny, I have such a photo on my passport (I didn't care my beard as a student), I can't imagine the scrutiny I would receive at such an anti-Islamic border.

As a side note, I had no extra problem at Buenos Aires even if I made a major custom mistake (I got back into the international area after having received the entrance stamp), they understood I was lost. The Argentina capital was victim of 2 big bomb attack by some Islamic extremists (29 and 85 dead) but seems to not have instated hate and arbitrary humiliations as a security policy since.

As an American citizen, I would like to say how embarrassed I am that our border security put you through that process.

I think anyone who wants to ought to be allowed to enter the US to work.

Tell that to the guys that are competing with Mexicans for jobs. I'm not saying they are right, just that I can see how high ideals like freedom of movement fly out the window the moment your job is threatened.

I'm also embarrassed about those people. We live in a global economy, why should I have to pay extra to someone who thinks that his/her citizenship entitles him/her to an above-market wage when there is a hard working person willing to do the work for less?

It is disgraceful that hardworking people all over the world starve while here in the US people feel entitled to complain about their jobs being "taken".

Maybe the smartest thing to do is avoiding United States altogether, collaborating with this kind of dumb rules is only reinforcing this kind of behavior since people keep trying to get in even when bothered.

You voted with your wallet, you can now vote with your passport. Moreover, some decentralization and diversity in economy can only bring benefits to the world, monoculture is toxic in the long run.

Moreover, some decentralization and diversity in economy can only bring benefits to the world, monoculture is toxic in the long run.

While this is true, it'll be years (probably decades) before starting technology startups anywhere else in the world is as likely to succeed as it is in the US (particularly Silicon Valley, but Boston will do, in a pinch, I guess). You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. But, hopefully, some of the Brits and Canadians and Indians, etc. who come to the states to build their startups will strike it rich, and go back home and help develop a startup friendly culture. It'll still be decades before any place is as big as the valley, but it'll be a start.

I agree. But I think if the center of technology does go somewhere else, it won't be because that other place catches up to the valley, but because the valley screws up and some other city can take its place. For instance, if the punishment for violating patents became life in prison, civil rights in US kept falling, the US put up larger barriers to skilled immigrants, acquisitions became heavily taxed, and/or a "windfall tax" was applied to Silicon Valley to pay for the economic depression elsewhere in the US, SV would very quickly die.

Between a place like Singapore catching up and SV falling behind, I'd guess a shift in who's in the technology hub would likely be caused by the latter.

The more people move to Silicon Valley to start their venture, the more time will pass before its easier to do so in their hometown. Moreover, maybe the Silicon Valley way of thing is not the only way to bring innovation, maybe Nigerian people have another economical system to do this, maybe there can be a Spanish way of doing thing things, a Brazilian way etc. I'm sure that the best way to do things the Silicon Valley's way is moving there, but where's the innovation apart from the product ?

But I have a Silicon Valley tale : Steve Jobs, if he distorts reality and makes his twisted ideas of reality become the real reality, it's not by conforming to established things. He creates his battleground, convoke his enemies on it and then fight. There's some "second order" risk to take : not only you risk to fail in your venture, but you can take a higher risk by failing in the way you start your venture. Going to a rural area, taking money from other people than VCs, and doing something that's neither electronics nor a web 2.0 website (nor a traditional business, of course). And with this additional risk, comes a reward.

The more people move to Silicon Valley to start their venture, the more time will pass before its easier to do so in their hometown.

You're placing the value of hope that the future will be better in your hometown over the value of the fact that things are better right now in Silicon Valley. You and I both hope that, in the future, an entrepreneur-friendly culture will grow in many places. But, I'm accepting the reality that for my current business to succeed today, I need to take part in that culture today.

If you're willing to forego success today in exchange for helping other people in your hometown have success in the future (distant, but questionably made nearer for your willingness to stay home), then we're talking about different questions. Of course, I happen to believe you have to have some success under your belt in order to make a real impact on your hometown's startup culture. Random dudes who are passionate about startups is far less effective than random dudes with millions of dollars and a proven track record of building one or more companies who are passionate about startups.

And then we're back to the question of, "How do I best insure my business is a success?" If it's a technology startup the answer is often, though not always, "build it in Silicon Valley".

That's true, actually I'm more a global thinker than a individual thinker. That's why even if I fail, I should first do no harm and have at least led others to the right direction (in my case, health and ecology).

And this kind of thinking doesn't makes me try to succeed whatever the price. Or in this case, I can even pass over opportunities that would make my personal success more likely but my global influence less positive. I can say "I will strike rich AND THEN have a positive impact" but the odds are 5 on 1 against me to strike rich so I have to be positive for others even if I personally don't strike rich.

PS: I hate the "this link is expired stuff".

While I'm rarely accused of humility, I'm afraid that in this case I am too humble to imagine that by staying in Austin (or Houston, or Greenville, SC, or any other place I've lived) that I could have turned their economy and culture into one that is more friendly to entrepreneurs given my existing resources.

It sounds as though you are not hindered by any such weakness. Best of luck to you.

> The more people move to Silicon Valley to start their venture, the more time will pass before its easier to do so in their hometown.

You're looking at it as a zero sum game with only one move. Some people may go to silicon valley, make money, or at least learn about startups and the culture there, and take some of that home with them. If they'd simply stayed home, it's not a given that they would have been able to start a company, or be as successful at it.

>And with this additional risk, comes a reward.

You're getting the cart before the horse. One reason a given reward can exist unplundered is because no-one has taken the risk necessary to get it. There are rewards that don't require risk, but they're quickly taken.

Your comment sounds more like a veiled swipe at the US rather than anything constructive.

Take an introductory macro economics course to find out why what you said actually doesn't work out in practice. It's much better if a country specializes in what they are good at rather than try to do everything. Given that the US has proven itself to be quite good at making software and internet, that would make it a pretty good place to be, regardless of immigration rules.

When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode (software)

high-speed pizza delivery

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Snow_Crash]

That would be a fine thing if Silicon Valley was in Canada.

Under a B-1 visa, you're not allowed to work for a US company or receive any money while you're in the US. Since YC is a program that clearly intends to fund a US company of yours, it's no surprise that you were put under additional scrutiny. The border officials were just doing their job.

Their 'additional scrutiny' concluded that I was a student even though I had massive amounts of documentation pointing to the exact opposite conclusion. It is their job to investigate extra-ordinary situations. Suggesting that I needed a student visa was just plain wrong.

How about just saying you are going for a business meeting? The Canadian officials seem to find that satisfactory every time I go there, so I don't see why it won't work in the reverse direction.

Thanks for the article, I figured it would be to difficult to get into y-cominator as a Canadian. It's a shame I didn't think this through earlier.

I wouldn't worry too much about it -- most every foreign-national other than me has had no problems getting in for the program. I think I just ran into a couple bad border officials. Perhaps I was even over-transparent the first time. By having so much documentation prepared, maybe I made myself look suspicious.

"a couple bad border officials"

You haven't traveled to US that much then.

I did an internship last year in Washington so I drove back-n-forth a lot with my friends and other students from UBC and SFU. Boy... all of us hate dealing with US immigration officers.

Earlier this year, I had to go to US for a business trip. Things haven't changed. They're still the same Fat, Oily haired, snobbish, and stupid border officers.

I remember couple months ago I saw a blog post saying that they didn't know what MacBook Air was so they thought it was a bomb or something.

Trust me, you're wrong about "bad border officials." And having been in that room (at a different airport) 3 times, you also downplay the unpleasantness of it. I'm curious if you went through the fingerprint/mugshot process - can't remember if they bring that out on the first refusal or not.

Anyway everytime you get refused they seem to amp up the harassment. I'm reasonably sure if I tried to reapply, they'd be doing body-cavity searches.

You are 100% right about the unpleasantness of the entire ordeal. They did do the fingerprint, mugshot deal... but until I realized that he was going to refuse entry, I was being optimistic for some reason.

I did go easy on them in this article... perhaps as a reflection of my own paranoia about getting back in when I need to... I had mental images of 5 idle border officials googling my name as I sat in the waiting room.

Yeah, I should shut up too ;-)

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