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Comment by skmurphy | Hacker News Reader

Conclusion:

"There is plenty of international talent that can and should be leveraged in the appropriate places and the proper ways. There are many instances where you’re going to want to hire a leading expert in a technical field. But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..]

We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring."

Related earlier post by Mark Atwood: https://markatwood.substack.com/p/america-is-an-idea-not-an-...

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> But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..]

> We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring.

It's tough to square this noble thought with what's actually happening in corporate America. The culture of investing in training and mentoring to foster employee growth has been eroding for the past 40 years (if not more), to where it only seems to exist in limited capacity in legacy institutions and is completely absent in new (tech) firms. How does one convince business leaders to bring it back?

> How does one convince business leaders to bring it back?

There are precisely 1.0 ways to do that: make all of the alternatives more expensive.

That's it. Nothing else will move the needle.

I don't believe it is possible: every policy one can imagine, short of establishing a GULAG system to compel compliance, has powerful opposing interests, including workers themselves. It would require the sort of comprehensive and sustained focus that a nation aspiring to nearly suicidal liberalism can not deliver.

Every system I can imagine as a real unintended consequence that is worse than what we have. The ideal should move to needle back - but there is no way to make that happen that isn't worse than where we are now.

When nobody is going to work for the same company for decades what is the point? This is both management's fault for not valuing the people they have (it is very common for cost of living raises to not match inflation or much less increased value as people get better), layoffs; but also workers for looking for a new job (only partially because of the above) when they have one.

I think in the ideal world 30-60% of the people who retire from your company should have started there just out of school. Much less than that and you don't get the value of experience built up over time. Much more and you miss out of good ideas others are doing. However there are many ways the world will never be ideal...

> The culture of investing in training and mentoring to foster employee growth has been eroding for the past 40 years (if not more), to where it only seems to exist in limited capacity in legacy institutions and is completely absent in new (tech) firms. How does one convince business leaders to bring it back?

With engineers in the big tech companies mostly only staying for maybe 1-2 years I can understand employers not being very interested in training and mentoring to foster employee growth.

40 years ago engineers frequently stayed at companies like DEC, IBM, and HP for 10 to 20+ years.

> With engineers in the big tech companies mostly only staying for maybe 1-2 years I can understand employers not being very interested in training and mentoring to foster employee growth.

This is an effect, not a cause. People started voting with their feet when companies stopped investing in them.

It’s going to need to be strong “encouragement”, either monetary or regulatory.

Because it is advantageous to be the only one who doesn’t invest in it while reaping the benefits from those who do. So very few do.

That is easy to say. You can put it on a political mailing "vote for me and I'll"... However details matter. I've yet to see any detailed proposal that isn't obviously worse than where we are now.

YC partner Ankit Gupta: hiring Americans first is DEI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467325 - August 2026 (2 comments)

H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025 (4 comments)

India's Tata Consultancy Was Gaming the US Visa System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088906 - February 2025 (59 comments)

How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 - July 2024 (57 comments) [https://github.com/BloombergGraphics/2024-h1b-immigration-da...]

The Secret Way Silicon Valley Uses the H-1B Program - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/silicon-v... | https://archive.today/qffNT - June 2017

Ergo, laws will be required to "encourage" the corporate paperclip maximizer apparatus. When did asking nicely ever work? "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising the lawnmower."

“If Something Cannot Go on Forever, It Will Stop.“ Stein's Law

"The labor market can remain irrational, adverse, and potentially fraudulent longer than you can remain solvent." -- me

Of course, but there’s a wide gulf between slamming into a wall at 80mph and gently rolling to a stop. The latter requires foresight and action, however.

I don't think the famously young-skewed tech industry is at any risk of slamming into a wall. If Google finds in 2035 it's running out of good seniors in their 30s because they haven't been mentoring college grads well enough, there'll be plenty of experts in their 50s and 60s to pull back in from management or FIRE or age discrimination.

Your ability to consistently cite relevant sources/articles in your comments is impressive to me.

It's a sign of a well informed person. Keep it up!

Thank you for the kind words. I remember everything I’ve ever read, it’s simply how fast I can aggregate links and threads based on keywords from HN search and my internal knowledge base/graph.

Objective data, evidence, and facts are important as a shared foundation to discuss upon.

> I remember everything I’ve ever read

How's that possible? Any tricks you can share?

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