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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, who cares?

Work permits are to make sure you don't steal jobs from the locals. Working on your own project has nothing to do with that. So while it may be breaking the letter of the law, it's certainly not breaking the spirit of it. My point being, you shouldn't have ethical issues with it -- it's like driving 57 in a 55 zone.

I know people who have been deported for not having the right visa -- a phone call by an angry ex or housemate in every case. Nobody's going to report you to immigration unless you've seriously pissed someone off. So just don't piss people off. And worst-case scenario, you leave early.

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Exactly.

The culture of the judicial system works in a wholly different way in developing nations than in the West. They don't practice laws like we do. When you cause trouble in Thailand, they'll find any law you might have broken, just to get you, but when you don't cause trouble, most of the times you're fine, even if you might be breaking the law in official terms. I heard it's the same in China.

Sure, it's a risk, but please tell me why all these co-working spaces everywhere are filled with foreigners without work permits and growing rapidly.

Remote working is a new reality, and it would be highly counter-productive for these countries to start striking down on people working there. Every single foreigner I met in Thailand was working on projects either focused on their own country or internationally, thus not threatening local jobs. In reality, many of the Thai learnt from the foreigners that'd teach them about their tech stacks. That's exactly how they're building their own startup scene in Bangkok now. Learning from foreigners.

I'd argue it may increase a developing nation's level of innovation to have remote workers around and governments should embrace this new reality asap.

> I heard it's the same in China.

Not in this case: they specifically target foreigners working without permits here, though mostly English teachers.

China isn't really a cheap place for bootstrapping a startup, so the random foreigner coding in starbucks isn't going to attract any attention. Kai Fu's Innovation Works, a YC-style incubator, can help get foreigners working visas for incubated projects, I think.

or you can take university classes, a win for both the visa and language situations.

the random foreigner who replies to a couple of job listings, has industry experience, and can crank out more than php or javascript spaghetti (because there are plenty of good developers here who will work for much less than sv wages) can definitely find startup-like situations. or maybe i just lucked out, dunno.

I did the Chinese school thing 11 years ago.

The low end tech scene is quite vibrant but wages for competent dev's keeps going up. China really just isn't that poor anymore; though you still have plenty of kids who are poorly trained but willingly to work hard on the cheap.

Most foreigners outside of the few American tech companies are entrepreneurs and/or managers. I'm quite unusual as a researcher.

yeah, i was doing the high-school thing at that time.

and plenty of kids who -- with or without formal training -- are solid hackers.

there are def more foreign businessmen than 老外 devs, and not without some cause: i'd definitely get more compensation from a startup in the bay or bank in ny than i do at my current job.

I work at Microsoft, we have plenty of laowai devs and PMs, though quite a small percentage compared to local and even haigui (returnee) talent. As I rise in level, my pay is becoming more similar to Redmond, combine with the fact that research jobs are rare in general, its a fairly good job for me. But the pollution in Beijing...is the biggest problem for me right now.

Most of the time I would agree with this sentiment, I don't think you're morally wrong to work on your own project while living in other countries without a proper visa; it's definitely not breaking the spirit of the law. Heck, you're spending your money here, all the better. It's obviously less of a risk if you work from home than a co-working space where you could be easily targeted if a random check does happen (as its meant as a "working space" and not a casual coffee shop.) Then again, I've also not heard of people being hauled off just yet.

In this case it was a profitable business and the guy was also hiring locals. There are probably tax considerations and I would say this is breaking the spirit of the law.

Those shared work spaces could be subsidized to encourage locals so taking advantage of that is problematic.

It would be different if he was just building his product, no business entity and no local hires...

He was hiring a remote filipino worker and his dutch friend apparently.

Was that in the article somewhere?

At any rate, there's some fine line where an activity that could otherwise be described as a hobby becomes work. It's the actual activity + intent + context + judgement of the authorities that matters... Presumably when you essentially establish residence, get paid, hire and manage other people, that line has been crossed.

Because clearly him spending his money there instead of somewhere else is a net negative for the country?

Here's the source for who he hired to work for his company: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/389171438013267968

The issue seems to be about avoiding deportation rather than ethics.

The real question is How much would a bootstrapper need to pay off local authorities?

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