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Comment by bluegreen10294 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but do we want to win talent war or not?

We should be thrilled to be attracting talent from other countries. Most countries do not have this luxury.

Bring smarter, qualified people to the US. If not, they’ll find a way somewhere else

You assume this is talent. Thats not at all the case. Most are mediocre workers who came in as masters students and got OPT and h1b eventually with PERM.

The talented workers can always apply for the O1 and get approved

There's different degrees of talent. An international student who graduates from Stanford or MIT would not qualify for an O1 visa, but the US would be shooting itself in the foot to send them back.

Talent isn't enough for O-1, because the criteria are mostly about individual achievements. An established professional can fulfill them easier than a more talented junior. The criteria are about demonstrating that it has to be this specific individual, who would bring something more than the generic talent you can always get from the market by paying more than your competitors.

O-1 is also easier to get in fields like academia and entertainment, where everyone is building their individual brand. Corporate employees have a harder time qualifying, because their contributions are rarely attributed to them in public.

>do we want to win talent war or not?

Talent war against whom? It's not like the best and brightest are lining up to defect to China.

(Ignoring the political context of this post) No. I don't want to fight a war. I want a peaceful and secure life. I have two oceans and military ten times the size it needs to be to effectively protect me. I don't need the number to go up or more plastic garbage.

But if you stop growing, for how long will your peaceful secure life last?

Do you believe that economics is zero-sum?

> Bring smarter, qualified people to the US. If not, they’ll find a way somewhere else

More than 70% of H1B in tech is from a single country, where cheating is considered a normal aspect of life. I'm sure most people here have at least once encountered this cultural difference in their day to day work.

While I still think H1B program is needed, it has to be revamped, putting cap per country is the most obvious first step.

They just need to give the visas to the people with the highest paying contracts instead of giving them randomly. This will instantly remove all the wipro/Tata/etc. Indians and also unblock access for genuine talent.

I would actually prefer having a job so that I can avoid starving, than to "win the talent war", whatever that means.

“Talent” is an subjective term.

I see it more as a brain drain. I wonder how the world would be if those extremely talented people have stayed in their home countries and contributed to the local economies and development of the respective countries rather than contributing to the American imperialism.

Return immigrants are a non-negligible plus for the countries the people returned to because they saw other ways of working and lives and approaches and they seed their original countries. I do agree brain drain can be rough, but cross-polination of skills is super useful.

This is a nepotism war

America already won here, the top tier talent outside America is already here or looking to get to America. The big name companies hiring them aren't doing it to save money. It is the outsourcing companies that are basically sweatshops that Trump is targeting.

Sounds great on paper, but in reality it is a program to bring mediocre workers that would do anything for the opportunity, including being underpaid. My company did this, on a smaller scale than Microsoft, and the result is the worst employees we have in US.

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