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As far as I can tell, the report doesn’t say 50% of founders are foreign-born. Rather, it says (middle of page six) that 50% of tech companies have at least one
by hackerdude 16y ago
As far as I can tell, the report doesn’t say 50% of founders are foreign-born. Rather, it says (middle of page six) that 50% of tech companies have at least one foreign-born founder. That’s very different. To use a very simple example, if you had 100 startups, each with three founders, 50 of which had 3 native-born founders and 50 of which had 1 foreign-born and 2 native-born founders, you’d have 50% of companies with a foreign-born founder, but only 17% of the founders would be foreign-born.
The question that needs to be answered is: do immigrant technology workers found technology startups at a higher or lower rate than native-born technology workers? Surprisingly, I’ve never seen that question addressed. I’ve seen articles that imply an answer, but once I dig a bit it always seems that the data doesn’t actually justify the implied conclusion.
- timr 16y agoGood point. I hadn't noticed that -- it makes the argument even weaker. Nearly everyone in this thread is taking for granted that foreign workers are more entrepreneurial, and using this piece as some sort of external validation of that view. But the article is just regurgitating a sound-bite. Without context, there's no reason to believe that the cited statistic implies a meaningful conclusion.