5 ms·

Are you sure H1B visas are relevant here? I would imagine EB-5 (investment) visas would be the more common route for upper class immigrant entrepreneurs coming

• cft 11y ago
  They are more like upper-middle classes (not upper classes).
  • ausjke 11y ago
    exactly, many of them are well educated and trained indeed.
• GuiA 11y ago
  Not quite so sure. I was a startup cofounder (never made it to billion dollar though :), and came to the US via grad school on an F1 visa, which then morphed into an H1B, and am now in the process of getting a green card. I know this is a very common path. Regarding the class thing: my grandparents were blue collar workers who never went to high school, my parents were engineers.
  • chrisper 11y ago
    IANAL, but you cannot legally work on your own startup if you are on H1B
    • ojbyrne 11y ago
      You can be a "co-founder" of a funded startup though. As long as the company has enough financial backing to prove they can pay you a market wage, and you meet the other requirements.
      • chrisper 11y ago
        Oh, that makes sense!
• tosseraccount 11y ago
  The WSJ article specifically mentions H-1B visas. The Wall Street Journal often editorializes in support of more guest workers. Professor Norm Matloff presents a detailed critique of the H-1B visa : http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html ... "The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap, de facto indentured labor." I'm not sure how lean, garage startups feel about Venture Capital's special access to guest workers for their competing "Billion Dollar Startups". I would guess that their views are little more nuanced than the Wall Street Journal's take on it. The biggest H1-B employers , are in fact, outsourcing firms : http://www.businessweek.com/table/08/0305_h1b.htm http://www.businessweek.com/table/08/0305_h1b.htm . Their frequent editorials often fail to mention this.
• klipt 11y ago
  Elon Musk was an H1-B.
  • foobarqux 11y ago
    No, he was OPT, at least initially.
    • OmarIsmail 11y ago
      OPT doesn't last very long (18 months max I think). The standard path for students is F1->OPT->H1B->Green Card->Citizen.
      • fgandiya 11y ago
        It's now three years for stem https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/ https://www.att.com/deviceunlock/
        • klipt 11y ago
          The STEM extension is a recent (2008) development, probably motivated by the fact that H1-Bs are now a lottery so students need multiple shots to have a chance at winning. Back when Musk would've applied, that wasn't a problem, he would've gotten an H1-B pretty easily. While you can go straight from OPT to green card, getting an H1-B first is much better since it's dual intent, so you're not prevented from traveling during the green card application (which you would be on OPT).
      • foobarqux 11y ago
        I suspect he never got an H1-B; his brother was in the US without a visa.
• ra1n85 11y ago
  I was downvoted for this comment. I don't even know what to think about that.
• ra1n85 11y ago
  I was downvoted for this comment. I don't even know what to think about that.