America is sabotaging itself in the global battle for talent | Hacker News Reader

America is sabotaging itself in the global battle for talent

economist.com

53 pointscr189569 comments

> A Harvard study tried to measure this by looking at what happened to researchers when a colleague died. The loss of an immigrant brainbox reduced co-workers’ productivity (measured in patents) by nearly twice as much as the loss of a native. From this, the study estimated that immigrants in America, though only 14% of the population, are responsible for a colossal 36% of innovation.

1) What the hell is a brainbox?

2) What does the death of a colleague have to do with innovation?

3) Can you really measure innovation with "# of patents"? By that measure, Panasonic is the most innovative company in the world.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brainbox British slang for "clever person" (The Economist is based in the UK).

I have generally thought of immigrants as "people", not "brainboxes".

Losing a coworker, particularly at a small company, is also quite traumatic. After losing a key member of a team, perhaps the survivors find they have other priorities in life than trying to file for lots of patents. This seems like a rather obvious confounding factor.

> After losing a key member of a team, perhaps the survivors find they have other priorities in life than trying to file for lots of patents. This seems like a rather obvious confounding factor.

Exactly, seems pretty disingenuous to measure grieving people's productivity and compare based on whether they're grieving the death of a native or immigrant.

If I lost my cofounder (who isn't a migrant) I would be devastated and probably wouldn't produce much of anything for a year or two.

If they were from another country and I didn't even have any of my cofounder's family around, just a big gaping hole where they used to be... I'd probably quit and go find a job somewhere else so I could stop thinking about it.

Getting a patent application in would be the very last thing on my mind.

Sure, but their being foreign changing behavior a lot more? It's possible but its a better finding than Freud ever had.

1) Net total of everything brought/created by his brain for that organization?

2) His death also meant the death of his creativity in his team. It also means that no one else could replicate it at that level? [That they couldn't find a replacement for him quick enough]

3) By how well it is received by an organization and real world customers.

Would you say that Steve Jobs brought life into an otherwise dull company called Apple? Not saying that immigrants are like him, but just throwing some light on your questions.

> 3) By how well it is received by an organization and real world customers.

One patent can be more "innovative" than 10,000 patents. For example, 10,000 patents on horse carriage designs/parts compared to one patent for a Model T car.

Am I the only one thinking that "Harvard studies" are passé? On a personal note Harvard business related bibliography ended in my bookshelf with management classics and many HBRs from the early 2000s.

Not at all. Harvard's name on something created in the last decade damages its credibility.

Another issue is the US education System.

Yes there is and always will be a need for skilled people from other Countries. But in the US, many High School grads need to be re-taught some basic high-school level courses as freshmen.

This started in the 80s. I remember a couple of profs telling me this.

But many US communities cannot afford to provide a good education for various reasons. To me, the largest reason is no one wants to pay taxes.

One would think that, but the recent educational attainment surveys (PISA would be an example) show Americans performing well on the whole. There are going to be people from any population that don't learn very much in high school, but overall, Americans are a well-educated lot of people.

Spending on education is at fairly high levels (for example, some major cities spend over $20,000 per student per year), with surprisingly little impact on results versus districts that spend a lot less. I would say that the public as a whole is willing to spend on taxes for schools, too. I see tax increases for schools generally passing at the local level plus more spending at both the state and federal level going through. There may be a lot of room for discussion about /how/ that money is being spent.

I will say - as someone selecting schools now for my kid - the thing I worry about is my child being surrounded by other bright, motivated kids. In my experience that's the kind of thing that makes them be better - much more than 'great schools'. It's the same reason folks move to the bay - to be where the 'best' are.

I also worry about making sure my children are socialised around average and, yes, some below-average children, and some unmotivated ones, too. I'm not sure growing up in a "bubble" of only the bright and motivated is the healthiest social approach. It's valuable to go to school with people who don't look like you and think the same way you do.

> It's valuable to go to school with people who don't look like you and think the same way you do.

I did and it was incredibly alienating. I will make sure my kids don't have to go through that.

This is right. I’m an MIT physics SB. The undergraduate curriculum is pretty uniform across schools. A lot of our teachers were poor. But what was being taught, and is always taught at top schools, is mannerisms. What does an actual physicist do? What are his attitudes towards this and that? What is important and what can be ignored? And a lot of those mannerism are taught, reinforced, and related by peers.

With 5th & 8th graders, my chief concern is the perceived anti-Western slant that the schools my taxes support have apparently subscribed to of late.

Hence my willingness to float private tuition on top of taxes.

I don't care to have them grow up confused regarding the basics.

Not only is paying taxes not even correlated with education spending, spending per student is extremely high all across the USA and results are extremely poor, especially on a spending basis.

>Not only is paying taxes not even correlated with education spending, spending per student is extremely high all across the USA

Correct. Contrary to what is often said, there is no shortage whatsoever of funding for public schools in urban areas. New York City spends more per student than anywhere else in the US. <https://www.silive.com/news/2019/06/how-much-does-new-york-c...> Baltimore, an incredibly poor and run-down city, spends the third most. #4-6 and #8 are all wealthy suburbs of Washington DC, but their schools are all far better than those of Baltimore or NYC on average, despite Baltimore spending slightly more per student and NYC spending 60-70% more.

>and results are extremely poor, especially on a spending basis.

Perhaps the latter is true, but the former is not. <https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1732478253225443777>

Basically, every US ethnic group does better than their countries of origin.

While spending is high, results are among the best in the world.

Certainly not across the board, and especially not in poorer areas that cannot/will not fund their schools. That is an incredibly general statement that simply is factually incorrect.

My statement is absolutely true once you control for demographics.

Can you provide sources for this then?

Since searealist has not, I will. <https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1732087511327908128>

Basically, every US ethnic group does better than their countries of origin.

Thank you for the source, this is rather interesting. However I believe there’s some level of miscommunication. My original comment was in reference to the inequality within the distribution of funds due to inequality of tax revenue across the country, and how that affects the learning opportunities of less-privileged kids who, I would argue, are in more of a need for better education to escape their lower income bracket.

>My original comment was in reference to the inequality within the distribution of funds due to inequality of tax revenue across the country

I was responding to your request for evidence for searealist's statements that the US educational system is the best in the world when accounting for ethnicity.

But, since you brought it up: Contrary to what is often said, there is very little evidence that funding affects outcome at all. New York City spends more per student than anywhere else in the US. <https://www.silive.com/news/2019/06/how-much-does-new-york-c...> Baltimore, an incredibly poor and run-down city, spends the third most. #4-6 and #8 are all wealthy suburbs of Washington DC, but their schools are all far better than those of Baltimore or NYC on average, despite Baltimore spending slightly more per student and NYC spending 60-70% more.

(With that in mind, now reread the above Twitter thread.)

American schools are the best in the world. Compare the performance of any demographic in American schools to that of their native countries.

Correct. <https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1732478253225443777>

> To me, the largest reason is no one wants to pay taxes.

You do understand you don’t get to choose to pay taxes, right? Federal income tax is certainly immoral, and no one wants to pay it, but for most they cannot be bothered to fight it in some way. They take the tax credits they’re given and pay the rest out of pocket. And that’s assuming it isn’t already taken out before they even get the check.

The true problem is that the American government at various levels pockets a lot of it, and what they don’t pocket is spent on things such as funding unnecessary wars, subsidizing European healthcare via military assistance, and restricting American rights. And after all of that, by the time the school is involved it’s filled with a standardized curriculum that’s built on memorization and not genuine education.

But in the US, many High School grads need to be re-taught some basic high-school level courses as freshmen.

Which pales in comparison to the English education immigrants need but never receive.

> Which pales in comparison to the English education immigrants need but never receive.

???

So people can travel half the world and fill all the paperwork to immigrate to the US but somehow then can't register to a language class? At some point we should stop blaming society for laziness of individuals. It never has been that easy to learn languages (esp. English) and for free thanks to the internet.

Immigrant founders or other highly skilled tech workers I've been around who speak English as a second language have, for the most part, had excellent English skills.

You can live a good life in America with very little education. What incentive is there for students and parents to demand better? It's the same reason our college campuses look like theme parks.

When I worked in university administration, the quality of food, HVAC in dorms, and other luxury facilities like gyms was a top priority along with a large array of activities to keep students occupied. (The food was excellent and I indulged every few weeks, but it was also pricey on a college employee's salary.)

When my parents were in school.. their description (at an Ivy League-tier school) was of basically inedible food in the cafeteria, and the food being particularly bad on certain days, and no air conditioning (in a hot, muggy part of the south). Their other set of memories was of complete academic excellence where nearly everyone was driven to be their best at whatever they did. My dad paid for it with a job working in a steel mill during the summer. They were both first-generation college students.

this is just "99.6% of 'poors' have a refrigerator" but for college. HVAC in dorms is not what is driving up college costs, and in fact probably has become increasingly necessary because of the fossil fuels burned by your parents' generation since then.

odds are also quite good that there was substantially less "academic focus" than Father presented there as being too... college kids being drunk goofs isn't a new thing either.

just like "nobody wants to work", I'm sure these sorts of things have recirculated over millennia

> and in fact probably has become increasingly necessary because of the fossil fuels burned by your parents' generation since then.

Yet, when I tell people that climate change rhetoric creates hysteria, they refuse to acknowledge it.

> I'm sure these sorts of things have recirculated over millennia

No one in recorded human history has ever come remotely close to the standard of living that you, presumably an average person, now enjoy. It is valid to wonder what the limits of this progress might be or if the scale of benefit shows diminishing returns.

Anyways, moving the goalposts away from basic Air Conditioning, we have _literal_ theme parks[0].

[0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/colleges-with-the-craziest-wa...

Personal experience - emigrating to the Netherlands after higher education is a well-defined and relatively easy process. After graduating you're able to apply for a "search year" residence permit which entitles you to residence and full access to the Dutch job market. (https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/work/residence-permit-fo...)

Normally then you're able to get a "highly skilled migrant" permit (with less restrictive criteria than had you not studied in NL) which is renewable, then eventually after passing some language and integration tests and sufficient time you're eligible for long-term permanent residence (or even citizenship).

It's a refreshingly sane approach compared to the US.

Same with Germany with the new Opportunity card program

https://archive.is/zcAkj

Simple fix to running out of H1Bs would be to ban body shops from the program.

I think it's good for the world and good for America if we don't siphon off the best and brightest from everywhere else, especially more developing countries.

Dangling green cards in front of the most motivated people from other countries is not better than actually working to develop our own talent, which we're doing an awful job at. Think of how things would be if school funding was something being demanded by industry to develop the best candidates. Instead we have the lucky few and a bunch of people who feel very rightly left behind.

> siphon off

These are people we are talking about, with agency, capable of making their own choices in life, not some inanimate "resource". If they want to come to the US, I'm a "grow the pie" guy.

Also, if they come here and better themselves, they’re going to produce goods and services that make the world better off. And if they return, they have more to contribute.

> "Think of how things would be if school funding was something being demanded by industry to develop the best candidates."

It would be pretty much the same because you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

It's not an either-or, though, is it? Why can't we both improve developing the native population and siphon the best and brightest from everywhere else?

I think the biggest reason why America depends so heavily on foreign talent is culture. America is culturally a country of middlemen. Being a middleman (such as an administrator, a lawyer, a consultant, or many roles in finance) is more lucrative than doing fundamental work, and the social status of middlemen is higher. Too many Americans become middlemen, and then they hire foreign talent to do the actual work.

That’s absolutely not a result of American culture, if anything every American is taught to be the CEO, the big man, the Steve Jobs. In reality it’s multinational business interests that push everyone to become middlemen as that’s cheaper. We moved most of our factories to asian countries, making most forms of American enterprise glorified dropshipping because we can use slave labor there. We import tons of office labor, especially tech jobs, from countries like India, where again it is cheaper. And the legal structure of so many sectors are essentially built to remove jobs from Americans (take for instance the federal limit on US-based doctors).

Everyone wants to be on the top, but their real preferences are revealed by the choices they make. Americans are less likely to study STEM than people in other developed countries, while foreign students in American universities prefer STEM fields. And when there is not enough domestic STEM talent, even with the help of foreign students, American businesses import foreign talent.

I understand the sentiment. US has a lot of capital to spend on talent compared to poorer countries. US provides a lot of opportunities that normally would not be available to them. And the US benefits

When I looked I found that the top math talent in the world has been increasingly concentrated in the US (specifically MIT) over the last 30 years [1]. Staying in academia is an easy way for immigrants to stay in the US but it would be nice if there was an easier path out into industry.

[1] https://xquant.substack.com/p/where-have-the-international-m...

Nah. Skilled immigrants simply do not have a backing votebank to push this through. Capital, as is well known, is more mobile than labor. The reverse 'brain drain' began a while ago. Google India has close to if not more employees than in the US. Indian and Chinese immigrants in tech returning to India and China is (in my anecdotal experience) at an all time high.

Developed countries are absolutely swamped with immigrants (skilled and not.) We're not short on workers but we are dysfunctionally short on social cohesion. Immigration exacerbates that and people check out.

EDIT: I'm out of posts for the day, here's my reply.

I mean people being able to communicate and empathize with eachother.

No one works

No one can get jobs (all the fake job postings and applications)

No one is dating

etc etc. These are all fundamentally the result of the destruction of social cohesion. This is a well known cyclical phenomenon and immigration is absolutely the opposite thing you should be doing in this phase of the cycle.

EDIT2: You can have large portions of the population unemployed and unemployment at historic lows if enough people have dropped out of the work force. According to the BLS that appears to be exactly what has happened in the US and is consistent with what I'm arguing.

I'm guessing by social cohesion you mean 'people unlike me'. Many Americans do seem to share that view.

There are many Europeans I share genealogical origins with that I would vehemently oppose and lack social cohesion with, just as I am sure there are many Mexicans whom I share no blood with that I would have high social cohesion with. It is not a controversial idea that, as an American, I should desire for those who live here to follow the same laws, standards, and patriotic beliefs me and my neighbors adhere to. If you hate America and wish for its demise, break laws, and refuse to live by the few social norms imposed upon you in America, then I genuinely do not want you here.

By social cohesion they probably mean social cohesion. Assuming the worst creates noise (and is explicitly against HN rules).

The fact that two people from some pairings of cultures don't socially cohere as well generally, on average than two people from the same culture shouldn't be a controversial thought. It's demonstrably a non-negligible issue. I've seen it undeniably harm teams and make everybody basically miserable, first hand, three or four times. Of course if one uses that fact to attempt to spread hatred, then that is a problem.

Why do this curt shitcoating of another person's honest opinion?

Edit: And as a sad disclaimer, I am not defending the parent's person. I do not know them. I am only criticizing your response.

Not to be overly dismissive but you just sound like a Boomer ranting on Facebook here. The "no one works anymore" line for example is directly contradicted by the unemployment percent which is currently sitting at all-time historic lows.

If you wanted to disagree without being dismissive, you should have omitted the first sentence.

Regarding "no one works", regardless of whether it's an exaggeration, it does not mean "nobody is employed".

Is employment at an all-time high? It appears to be down 4 points from the high of the last decade (64.4 in ‘00 to ‘23’s 60.3), unemployment only being a “historical low” if you compare the last 3 years, as since 2020 (56.8) it’s been, slowly, regaining the post-‘08 high during ‘19 (60.8).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/192398/employment-rate-i...

It's interesting that some tech jobs could also be leaving the US, cost of labor is too high for what you get out of it: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/why-is-it-so-expensiv...

This is one of 3rd rail of US Tech Workers so stepping into it is fun.

This is discussing recent comment made by Donald Trump: “You graduate from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card [permanent residence in the United States].” and wondering why United States doesn't do this compared to many other countries who have similar programs.

On one hand, United States educates a ton of foreigners, some of them with extremely advanced Degrees, then kicks them out of the country. This seems counterproductive to growing US economy.

On other hand, many in Tech Sector have seen recent layoffs, H-1B hiring to replace workers and offshore outsourcing and see such a proposal as a threat to their livelihood. Tech is still good sector to make a decent living in despite many companies' desperate attempts to reduce the cost.

As US Tech Worker, I think I would oppose such systems where "Visa handed to all graduate degree holders" since I think schools would just create graduate programs to increase enrollment regardless of if those programs actually contributed great candidates or not.

55% of all US unicorns have immigrant founders. 36% of all US unicorns are founded by Indian immigrants alone. No other statistic is needed to validate the value of immigration.

Another problem is the propensity for Congress to want to do "immigration reform" as a giant omnibus action. The discourse inevitably gets bogged down in mudslinging over the southern border, and any useful discussion over topics like this gets lost in the noise.

It's amazing how the USA can deflect immigrants to Canada, and still have housing problems.

US housing problems, as much as someone wants to blame some bogeyman like immigrants or foreign buyers or institutional investors or RealPage, are mostly a factor of local, NIMBY-driven politics.

Source: years of volunteer work.

> Its success is an implicit rebuke of places that still have paper forms and surly border officials, such as America.

Who has surlier? I'm always appalled at the US border attitude. You can perform all the same actions with a professional or friendly demeanor.

It is very hard to immigrate into the U.S. if you're a skilled worker. The system is almost nonsensical.

There are annual H1B lotteries (with a small chance of winning). There are L1's requiring you to work abroad in an American company for at least a year before applying. And none of those visas get you residency — it is a wholly separate process taking many years and a huge amount of paperwork, during which you live in a constant fear of losing your job and subsequent deportation if you can't find a new employer ready to sponsor your visa immediately. And for L1 you can't even switch employers which leads to a possible exploitation of a worker.

There are often huge wait times in U.S. embassies, you can't just go there and get a visa in a week or so — often you need to wait for many months for your interview.

And a cherry on top — specifically for technology workers, there is an "administrative processing" step in obtaining a visa. Basically, if you have a STEM degree, it triggers an additional security check (U.S. will automatically imply that you're a spy). It is a check that has no SLA on completion time — I know people who waited for many years (!) for that "administrative processing" to finish. What employer will wait for multiple years until every three-letter agency approves your case? It is madness, yet, it is the norm.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Alert_List

And yet, the U.S. lets millions of people across the border with absolutely no paperwork, no security checks — it is actually 10x easier to just walk through the border than try to get to the U.S. legally even if you're a high-profile engineer or a scientist. It's a clown show.

I suspect it would be faster for many people to migrate to Canada, attain citizenship, and then take the much easier NAFTA (USMCA?) visa path if they want to be in the United States. Although it looks like many migrants to Canada just end up deciding to stay there.

30 years ago, this was a popular path for people from Australia who wanted to get to America, using Canada as a stepping stone.

So you're telling me that people who go through the trouble of leaving their home country and going through a grueling process to emigrate to a new one are not typically very lazy?

Wow! Thanks again, Harvard, you truly are pushing on the boundaries of human knowledge over there.

I'm not a specific talent but I was a globetrotter having choose a different country than my original one. Some aspects I've valued and I still value:

- country stability, in term of internal and external projection (I would not look for a country about to go to war or suffer a civil war if I can) witch migh be counterbalanced by...

- ...country population, a population I trust or not, detached or not form the country ruling cohort, meaning mean corruption, attitude toward others, conformism etc;

- current fiscal policies, a high heritage tax for instance is a very BAD point, I can accept only if I know how to escape;

- climate status and possible evolution, orography, food production potential to nourish citizens in case of deep crisis etc;

- scholar system, a free one vs a paid one, an open one vs a casts based one;

- a balance of forces between the public and private sector, when one of both prevail the eventual current stability will not last longer;

USA for me might be partially attractive:

- in climate, orography, food production potential, they are safe;

- in terms of overall stability they are not so much stable, even though not more unstable than many others;

BUT:

- the fiscal system is very oppressive to my eyes;

- the private sector essentially is the State;

- the scholar system have some positive points, like a presence of talents, even if they are declining, but it's largely a cast bases system, and overall not attractive at all;

- the health system is good enough to be annihilated in a thermonuclear heat;

As an western European what can I get from USA? Some beautiful nature, but a byzantine bureaucracy, a very bad health system, a bad scholar system, a private sector more and more similar to a corporatocracy where the "American Dream" was a distant memory.

Trying to imaging a Chinese talent why exchange a growing, technically, industrially active country for the USA? Oh sure China future due to their demographic imbalance is essentially doomed, but not tomorrow morning. It's a bit like Nazi German of the '30s compared to the USA '29s disaster. Very similar for many aspects, but in a totally different shape.

Trying to imaging a Japanese I think Japan is doomed for many reasons but still being from Japan I can hope for better chance than facing a big switch to a totally different country with a similar corporate sector imbalance.

Maybe an Indian might decide to go for mere climatic reasons and chaotic, corruption level of the country itself.

I can keep going but the whole point is that USA was attractive because they was very active and they pay well (this is still valid today, but less than the past), now they a are a giant finance machine still with natural resources about to go to war to save a financial system that can't stand. Of course a vast country is many things, but that means at least civil war or significant risk of it. Not interesting for a life choice in a turbulent time.

IF the public came back to the cold war model of public funded research lead by researchers not by managers pretending to design the research itself and the researchers are just another kind of Ford model workers or while they have many interesting aspects those are not enough.

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