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You can apply for a green card at any time while on an H1B as it is a dual intent visa (i.e. they don't think its a problem if you tell them you want to stay permanently unlike E2). A shell company is highly unlikely to get an H1B petition approved

How quickly/successful you are with your GC application depends on whether you can qualify for EB2 or have to go through EB3. EB3 is backed up for years. EB2 is current (therefore around 12 months wait) if you are not from india and china but you need to have a masters or 5 years of provable experience (letters from previous employers) in an area that the petitioning company cannot find an American will the same skills.

The E-2 can be a bit of a trap IMHO. If your business fails or you sell it, you have to leave the US. This might seem reasonable until you consider someone might run a small company for years, build a family, settle, and then have to leave because of economic downturn or because they sell their company. I don't know how easy it would be for someone to move from owning/running a company under E-2 to H1B employee of a new owner.

tl;dr? There is no clear path from E-2 to green card.

Great points, except that the E2 visas ONLY apply to treaty countries, which excludes India and China.

Ironically, I + C are the biggest source of skilled tech labor, as evidenced by the 5+ year EB2/EB3 waiting period.

I am not saying that it will work for everyone as it did for me, and I know how fortunate I was. But I do know the system really well enough to get through the process. I actually come from a country where it is extremely hard to obtain a US visa from and so going through the process was not as easy as my first comment had made it seem.

As far as skilled tech labor goes, that is more of an H-1B cap issue, which the US should increase. Ironically, in 2007-08 when they were about to increase it, the great recession hit and not enough people applied to it. As such, they never got around to increasing it to the substantial number that they should

my point was I know tons of I+C engineers waiting for 5+ years for their GC via EB2 or EB3, so that they can eventually do a startup.

Could you please elaborate on how did you expedite your application and got your visa in 15 days (if you dont mind). I know couple of my friends who'll be looking for visa sometime soon hence asking.

I went through the E-2 process a few years ago. IIRC you can pay an extra $1000 to make your application a "high priority" one, which cuts the guaranteed response time from something like 3 months to 30 days.

When I did it as a high-priority application, I got an initial response saying "we need more data" within 2-3 weeks (from what I remember), then the final approval 2-3 weeks after I submitted that info.

I actually got it on the first go which surprised even me. Though it was more of a testament to how thorough my lawyer was.

Why dont you just email me (address in profile), and I will help you the best I can

Don't forget however that the E-2 visa is only for certain countries. Your country must be party of a treaty with the US. For people from countries like India, there is no E-2 visa. http://travel.state.gov/visa/fees/fees_3726.html

E2 only requires 50k to 100k?

I looked into it a couple of years ago and was told by a lawyer "substantial" means around 500k.

Maybe it depends which country you are from? I have been told that ~100k was possible.

You are probably right. That's a shame as I'm now moving to Canada instead but good to know for a year or two down the line.

Substantial depends on the type of business you want to setup, there is no scale. For an early stage internet company it's certainly possible with 100k

There is also the O1 visa which is possible albeit with a great deal of work, it's almost like a second job!

That requires not just a great deal of work, but unusual achievement and connections. It's the kind of thing that you can't just decide to get and apply for, but you have to have started years ago - getting a PhD at a top university in hard science, founding an innovative company, etc. etc.