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Thanks for doing this.

- How difficult has it become to get O1 for founders compared to say 5 years ago?

-What advice would you have for founders who think they should be able to get O1 once they have a bit of seed money (say YC, 500k) and press coverage?

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It's definitely more difficult but well within reach of founders (particularly founders with funding and organic press coverage) and talented professionals. That is, until very recently. It's too early to say whether this is a trend or an aberration but the past few weeks we've seen USCIS apply a different standard, one similar to the EB1A standard. If this is a trend, then I suspect that the RFE and denial rates for O-1s will skyrocket.

Is it just aligning to EB1A standards, or more rigorous and picky process in general?

There are suggestions[0] that the crooks running the country atm are trying to use the EB1 visa quotas for the golden visas instead.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA3qrg2Kpbo

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