Hacker News Reader

For a variety of economic and historical reasons, many software companies are only likely to succeed in the US.

Without an influx of new people at a faster rate than education, increased salaries from demand will just shuffle existing engineers around. Instead of working at company A, they'll work at company B, earning a few percent extra; and company A, not being able to afford engineers, will either find something else to do, or close up shop. Higher salaries aren't enough to increase the supply of labour very quickly.

Which one of company A vs company B is more likely to be a startup?

What you are actually arguing for, is for software engineers to seek rent on the creation of new companies. You want to slow down growth in the economy and decrease the rate at which software gets applied to new problems, in order to make more salary (for Americans, in particular, as opposed to people less geographically well off).

It's self-interested, and thus understandable. I don't really fault you for arguing your corner. But you should be aware that it's not necessarily in the interest of your fellow Americans, never mind VCs. Other Americans also benefit from the application of software to all sorts of problems. Increased salaries for engineers mean that software is more expensive (however it's paid for), and there's less of it.

PS: the parasites feeding on nexus of finance are a separate issue. It doesn't make your argument more convincing, because they are a special case, recently in particular. Those parasites need dealing with, but the regulatory system has largely been captured, especially in the US. My problem with working in finance is ethics, rather than salary. Much of those earnings have been against latent risks that the taxpayer is underpinning.

"Higher salaries aren't enough to increase the supply of labour very quickly."

They're enough to increase the supply of labor over the course of 5-10 years, which is plenty of time to keep the US competitive.

So really it's the companies refusing to pay higher wages in order to increase the talent pool who are holding America back.

You have some good points, but a lot of your argument is hinged on the idea that higher salaries would not bring more talent into the field. It's a statement that isn't backed up, and one I feel very skeptically about.

I think both sides have fine points. I don't support immigration barriers, but I also don't think we should tear the wall down in one fell swoop. If we significantly lower the boundary to immigration all at once, it will probably create a painful cycle in which all workers are significantly under paid until the businesses find the right balance in salary in order to get enough quality.

Ultimately lowering the immigration barriers will probably be good for everyone, tech workers included as the talent market globalizes and opens up more opportunities all around the world. Right now the need for good software globally seems to far outweigh the supply.

I've heard a lot of companies reason for locating in the Bay Area is for access to high quality engineers, way more than it is for financing. It's way easier to take money outside the Bay Area than it is to convince good engineers to move to X.

Would be nice if someone extrapolated how the wages would look like today if the H1-B program wasn't put into place. Would programmers be making WallStreet salaries? How would that have impacted the start-up ecosystem? Also, numerous H1-Bs are the core of companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc. How would things have looked without any of them?

And where would wages be if the biggest tech employers had not been blatantly colluding to depress wages, using illegal anti-competitive tactics?

Paul Graham advocates for free trade when it will increase the value of his portfolio and the wealth of his friends. He doesn't say a word about how free trade has been undermined by the illegal collusion of Facebook, Google, and Apple.

Agreed, there does seem to be a pretty asymmetric view of the effects of free trade by the VC crowd and the media.

Case in point, there has been an almost complete radio silence in the tech and mainstream media about the wage suppression related class action lawsuit that is ongoing. There was a brief flurry of reports at the beginning, but ever since Aug, when the judge rejected the proposed settlement, there has been no mention of the lawsuit at all.

The only people who keep the issue alive are the rank and file tech folks as witnessed by the comments section of any article related to tech wages and immigration.

I would just like to point out Facebook was not among the companies indicted for collusion.

Think what you will about Facebook, but it is on the high horse in this occasion.

You're right. I would edit it but the comment is now too old to edit. My sincere apologies to Facebook.

Here is a partial list of guilty companies:

Apple

Google

Microsoft

IBM

Adobe

Oracle

Sun

Intel

Earthlink

Virgin

Genentech

eBay / Paypal

Pixar

Intuit

Lucasfilm

Dreamworks

Dell

Comcast

Clear Channel

WPP

AOL

AskJeeves

Lycos

Oglivy

Illumita

DoubleClick

There is a very reasonable case to be made that H1-B's in particular actually push domestic salaries up at the expense of foreign salaries.

No there isn't. H1-B workers can't leave their current employer easily. (green card applications go to back of the line, must get a new job fast if they are laid-off, etc.)

H1-B employees are not mobile thus their salaries lack other workers.

> H1-B workers can't leave their current employer easily.

Agreed.

> green card applications go to back of the line

If you have an approved I-140 you can use the priority date of the original application. So no, it does not go to back of the line. Also, under the new executive action on immigration reform one of the proposals suggested is to issue EADs to folks with approved I-140s.

> must get a new job fast if they are laid-off

Agreed.

> No there isn't. H1-B workers can't leave their current employer easily. (green card applications go to back of the line, must get a new job fast if they are laid-off, etc.)

Actually, that glitch has been fixed. I was witness to a counter example.

> H1-B employees are not mobile thus their salaries lack other workers.

Yes, but having H1-B employees may nonetheless open up opportunity for higher paying wages for domestic workers. There isn't strictly a zero sum game here, as cheaper skilled labour and more importantly a greater skilled labour supply can make business models viable that otherwise aren't.

What is certain though is that every H1-B programmer is a programmer that otherwise would have otherwise been working in another country, and almost certainly at much lower wages. Odds favour that they'll get a job as a programmer.

> Yes, but having H1-B employees may nonetheless open up opportunity for higher paying wages for domestic workers. There isn't strictly a zero sum game here, as cheaper skilled labour and more importantly a greater skilled labour supply can make business models viable that otherwise aren't.

Sure there are benefits for EMPLOYERS. However, you aren't making a very good case for EMPLOYEES.

NAFTA and all the other "free" trade agreements since NAFTA always promised these wonderful benefits to Americans.

And those benefits were delivered... provide the American in question was worth $10+ million. But there are entire cities in the Midwest that saw major, devastating declines over the last 20 years as a result.

Everything sold to the American public about immigration and the benefits of opening up borders has talked about how wonderful the next new agreement will be for American businesses. Well it turns out the only "American" businesses that benefited are those listed on the NYSE/NASDAQ. Mom/pop businesses have been driven out of business as more and more of their customers have sunk from middle class to lower class.

> What is certain though is that every H1-B programmer is a programmer that otherwise would have otherwise been working in another country, and almost certainly at much lower wages. Odds favour that they'll get a job as a programmer.

Great. That's fine.

Now mind you, I do know the history of immigration in the U.S. And it used to be in general a benefit to more than just the business owner. But the last 25 years have been characterized as a coordinated effort by the 1% to drive everyone else into poverty by making Americans fearful of their jobs being sent overseas, union busting, tax giveaways, and Wall Street financial shenanigans.

"Immigration reform" as proposed by Paul Graham is just more of the same. It is clearly just to benefit him and people like him - there is no benefit to anyone else.

> Sure there are benefits for EMPLOYERS. However, you aren't making a very good case for EMPLOYEES.

Yeah, you're looking at this too narrowly. A new opportunity that otherwise didn't exist, that just might have a few high wage jobs in it. Even if the average salary goes down, the total number of opportunities goes up.

> Now mind you, I do know the history of immigration in the U.S. And it used to be in general a benefit to more than just the business owner. But the last 25 years have been characterized as a coordinated effort by the 1% to drive everyone else into poverty by making Americans fearful of their jobs being sent overseas, union busting, tax giveaways, and Wall Street financial shenanigans.

Perhaps a reflection of something other than evil businesses behind this. Might be a reflection of absurd global wealth inequality that is slowly getting chipped away.

>lso, numerous H1-Bs are the core of companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc. How would things have looked without any of them?

Google would not exist if the US immigration policies were always strict. Sergey Brin is an immigrant. Neither would lots of companies.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21576101-start-ups-fo...

Sergey Brin came to the U.S. with his family at the age of six from the USSR.[1] His family was probably admitted to the U.S. due to the religious persecution they faced: "Michael Brin [his father] claims Communist Party heads barred Jews from upper professional ranks by denying them entry to universities, and that Jews were excluded from the physics departments in particular."[2]

So his story is not very relevant to the discussion of H1-B visas and tech worker shortages.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin#Childhood_in_the_S...

Agreed, it is brutal how awful the zucks and pgs of the world argue about this. What I find bizarre is aren't they aware of how dishonest / douchey they come off when they fail to mention the impact on wages?

There is a way to solve the immigration problem. Create a system where the companies can hire people if they poney up 50k. That way there will be minimal impact on salaries and companies can get all the super stars they can afford.

> If tech wants the best workers, there are plenty of willing and capable Americans ready to pick up the work.

Are the people currently available really the best?

" but that's what it's supposed to be! Engineering talent is in high demand and salaries are supposed to go up!"

And this is the other half of the labor/capital equation, doing its damnedest to keep expenses low and profits high. It's supposed to work like this. :/

I can't get behind this because it's not workers versus management, or at least not only that. It's also workers versus other workers. Don't you have any friends who have had immigration issues? Screwing with them (or rather, supporting the politicians who do it) to get an even higher salary when we're already paid very well is pretty callous.

The reputation of tech employees is bad enough without this infighting over getting an even better seat at the table.