8 ms·

The anti-immigration campaign doesn’t help startups either. The majority of startup founders are immigrants[1], benefiting from the longtime American ideal tha

by mhneu 8y ago

The anti-immigration campaign doesn’t help startups either. The majority of startup founders are immigrants[1], benefiting from the longtime American ideal that America welcomes immigrants. Smart potential immigrants can start companies in other countries. [1]https://www.statista.com/chart/14065/countries-of-origin-of-immigrant-founders-of-billion-dollar-startups/ https://www.statista.com/chart/14065/countries-of-origin-of-...

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
I think there's a difference between the sort of high-skill and/or wealthy immigrants that create billion dollar tech companies and the low-skill immigrants that americans are mostly mad about.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  There seems to be very little distinction though when those high-skilled immigrants are being chased out of the country all the same, or start to avoid America because of that fear.
  - ihsw2 8y ago
    There is wide and abundant distinction that the left seems to willfully ignore with immense effort -- the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. The argument was never anti-immigration, it was always anti-illegal immigration and anti-unrestrained immigration. This nuance is important.
    - pwinnski 8y ago
      This nuance has been erased by an administration that has canceled programs for legal immigration, then used that retroactively-illegal status to deport people who have been here for decades. Perhaps for you the distinction is important, but in terms of policy, there is no difference at all.
      - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
        I hadn’t heard of this going on and it is very alarming. Could you point me to some resources to better educate myself on the matter? Thank you.
        severine 8y ago
        You can start here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-due-process/its-zeal-deport-immigrants-justice-department https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-...
    - aspaceman 8y ago
      Except when enforcing these policies they always seem to target those of darker skin - irregardless of the actual status of their immigration.
    - mhneu 8y ago
      That distinction is actually not the point. The point is that legal and high-skilled immigrants want to come to America because of America's multiculturalism. If you start kicking out all the people who are brown or muslim or otherwise different, you hurt the society and make it harder for the legal high-skilled immigrants to live here. (Not to mention that for three decades American politicians and corporations encouraged immigrants to come here and work without status. And that Irish and Italian immigrants came here 100 years ago before there was any immigration law; if today's republicans existed in 1900-1930, they would have demonized Irish and Italians for votes too.)
- kss238 8y ago
  And too bad anti-immigrant policies target both.
- influx 8y ago
  And one is within our laws and one isn’t.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- noobiemcfoob 8y ago
  Strict immigration policies necessarily affect both groups even if they are meant to target low-skill immigrants. At the very least, it creates an unwelcoming environment that would discourage the high-skill immigrants from considering the move.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Oh? Is that why nativists oppose the H1B visa without supporting alternative means of high-skill immigration? As a brown person it's become abundantly clear that the Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon view on immigration is certainly mad about something - and it's not skill.
  - briandear 8y ago
    An H1B is a temporary worker visa. So even if someone did start a company while on that visa, it’s not an immigration visa.
    - vkou 8y ago
      An H1B is a Visa with intent to immigrate. A TN1 is a non-immigration temporary worker visa. You need to do things to follow through on that intent, but it's still an option.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    I don't think they're mad, per se. They just want to get votes for their party, and xenophobia works. It divides the country, and amplifies hate, but it gets votes for their party.
- lghh 8y ago
  I don't think they check people's bank accounts when they hold mass trials for them at the border.
  - duozerk 8y ago
    Or when they hold "trials" for 3-year olds.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    I think if they're crossing the border we already know roughly what their bank account is.
    - lghh 8y ago
      Not that it matters because a person's worth is not defined by how much money they have... but also we don't know?
artificial 8y ago
America is fine with people immigrating legally - always has been. The perception that America doesn't have any talent is rather recent. The reason companies are started here is due to a number of factors, most importantly the lack of corruption (say compared to Italy), the legal system, and how the class system works. You can actually move up. It doesn't help that you can earn more on the higher end, too. Compare Swedes in US vs Swedes in Sweden. FB UK to FB USA.
- jjtheblunt 8y ago
  Totally agree. What's really going on is that Californian tech companies have a very hard time getting American talent from outside California to destroy their quality of living by relocating to California. What's left is the purposeful manipulative lie that foreigner talent is needed in the United States beyond whatever level of immigration is current. The lie part is that they really mean California, not the United States. Disclaimer: that conjecture above is something I learned from a straight-talking American executive in Qualcomm ~14 years ago after relocating from Motorola Labs, outside California.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    American universities are (currently, if not for long) the best in the world. A big reason for that is because smart people from all over the world come to American universities. Those smart people come to America in part because of its multicultural society. You can come from India or Germany or Japan and live your life in the US (again, presently, but it's changing) much more easily than in other, more homogeneous countries. That multiculturalism is what is being destroyed, to the United States economy's great detriment. (The H-1B visa situation is orthogonal. Yes, the lottery system needs reform, and no America shouldn't be importing young mid-to-low level tech employees from abroad to lower the pay of other tech employees. But the war on immigration has a much larger arc than that. Sergey Brin's parents came to the US for its acceptance of immigrants and its values. THAT is what is being destroyed.)
    - artificial 8y ago
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
That number sounded surprising to me, so I decided to read the paper that it's sourced from which is available here [1]. The first company they listed is SpaceX which of course is true. The next is Mu Sigma [2]. According to Wiki at least that company was founded in Bangalore. The next company was Palantir [3] which is Peter Thiel, so okay. The next is [4] Zenefits, which at least according to Wiki again was founded exclusively by an American. Shooting what seems to be 50% on the first 4 companies they list makes me kind of wonder about the accuracy of their numbers? I'm not sure how they generated their list or numbers, but it does not seem well supported. I'm also unsure how they picked their 87 companies given that their are hundreds of companies with revenues north of $1 billion (which was their metric), that were of course all at one time or another just a twinkle in somebody's imagination. [1] - http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Sigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Sigma [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenefits
- mhneu 8y ago
  Let's say "Many of America's tech companies were founded by immigrants, or the children of immigrants." Google, Sergey Brin Intel, Andy Grove Sun, Vinod Khosla Dropbox, Arash Ferdowsi Note that all of those came through Stanford or MIT. America's elite universities are hotbeds of immigrant talent that other countries would like to siphon off. The current war on america's multiculturalism (in pursuit of votes and political power) threatens to deeply damage America's universities, and thus its tech economy.

by mhneu 8y ago

frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago

I think there's a difference between the sort of high-skill and/or wealthy immigrants that create billion dollar tech companies and the low-skill immigrants that americans are mostly mad about.

fzeroracer 8y ago
There seems to be very little distinction though when those high-skilled immigrants are being chased out of the country all the same, or start to avoid America because of that fear.
- ihsw2 8y ago
  There is wide and abundant distinction that the left seems to willfully ignore with immense effort -- the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. The argument was never anti-immigration, it was always anti-illegal immigration and anti-unrestrained immigration. This nuance is important.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    This nuance has been erased by an administration that has canceled programs for legal immigration, then used that retroactively-illegal status to deport people who have been here for decades. Perhaps for you the distinction is important, but in terms of policy, there is no difference at all.
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      I hadn’t heard of this going on and it is very alarming. Could you point me to some resources to better educate myself on the matter? Thank you.
      - severine 8y ago
        You can start here: https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-due-process/its-zeal-deport-immigrants-justice-department https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/deportation-and-...
  - aspaceman 8y ago
    Except when enforcing these policies they always seem to target those of darker skin - irregardless of the actual status of their immigration.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    That distinction is actually not the point. The point is that legal and high-skilled immigrants want to come to America because of America's multiculturalism. If you start kicking out all the people who are brown or muslim or otherwise different, you hurt the society and make it harder for the legal high-skilled immigrants to live here. (Not to mention that for three decades American politicians and corporations encouraged immigrants to come here and work without status. And that Irish and Italian immigrants came here 100 years ago before there was any immigration law; if today's republicans existed in 1900-1930, they would have demonized Irish and Italians for votes too.)
kss238 8y ago
And too bad anti-immigrant policies target both.
influx 8y ago
And one is within our laws and one isn’t.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
noobiemcfoob 8y ago
Strict immigration policies necessarily affect both groups even if they are meant to target low-skill immigrants. At the very least, it creates an unwelcoming environment that would discourage the high-skill immigrants from considering the move.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Oh? Is that why nativists oppose the H1B visa without supporting alternative means of high-skill immigration? As a brown person it's become abundantly clear that the Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon view on immigration is certainly mad about something - and it's not skill.
- briandear 8y ago
  An H1B is a temporary worker visa. So even if someone did start a company while on that visa, it’s not an immigration visa.
  - vkou 8y ago
    An H1B is a Visa with intent to immigrate. A TN1 is a non-immigration temporary worker visa. You need to do things to follow through on that intent, but it's still an option.
- mhneu 8y ago
  I don't think they're mad, per se. They just want to get votes for their party, and xenophobia works. It divides the country, and amplifies hate, but it gets votes for their party.
lghh 8y ago
I don't think they check people's bank accounts when they hold mass trials for them at the border.
- duozerk 8y ago
  Or when they hold "trials" for 3-year olds.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  I think if they're crossing the border we already know roughly what their bank account is.
  - lghh 8y ago
    Not that it matters because a person's worth is not defined by how much money they have... but also we don't know?

artificial 8y ago

America is fine with people immigrating legally - always has been. The perception that America doesn't have any talent is rather recent. The reason companies are started here is due to a number of factors, most importantly the lack of corruption (say compared to Italy), the legal system, and how the class system works. You can actually move up. It doesn't help that you can earn more on the higher end, too. Compare Swedes in US vs Swedes in Sweden. FB UK to FB USA.

jjtheblunt 8y ago
Totally agree. What's really going on is that Californian tech companies have a very hard time getting American talent from outside California to destroy their quality of living by relocating to California. What's left is the purposeful manipulative lie that foreigner talent is needed in the United States beyond whatever level of immigration is current. The lie part is that they really mean California, not the United States. Disclaimer: that conjecture above is something I learned from a straight-talking American executive in Qualcomm ~14 years ago after relocating from Motorola Labs, outside California.
- mhneu 8y ago
  American universities are (currently, if not for long) the best in the world. A big reason for that is because smart people from all over the world come to American universities. Those smart people come to America in part because of its multicultural society. You can come from India or Germany or Japan and live your life in the US (again, presently, but it's changing) much more easily than in other, more homogeneous countries. That multiculturalism is what is being destroyed, to the United States economy's great detriment. (The H-1B visa situation is orthogonal. Yes, the lottery system needs reform, and no America shouldn't be importing young mid-to-low level tech employees from abroad to lower the pay of other tech employees. But the war on immigration has a much larger arc than that. Sergey Brin's parents came to the US for its acceptance of immigrants and its values. THAT is what is being destroyed.)
  - artificial 8y ago

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

That number sounded surprising to me, so I decided to read the paper that it's sourced from which is available here [1]. The first company they listed is SpaceX which of course is true. The next is Mu Sigma [2]. According to Wiki at least that company was founded in Bangalore. The next company was Palantir [3] which is Peter Thiel, so okay. The next is [4] Zenefits, which at least according to Wiki again was founded exclusively by an American. Shooting what seems to be 50% on the first 4 companies they list makes me kind of wonder about the accuracy of their numbers? I'm not sure how they generated their list or numbers, but it does not seem well supported. I'm also unsure how they picked their 87 companies given that their are hundreds of companies with revenues north of $1 billion (which was their metric), that were of course all at one time or another just a twinkle in somebody's imagination. [1] - http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Billion-Dollar-Startups.NFAP-Policy-Brief.March-2016.pdf http://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Immigrants-and-Bi... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Sigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Sigma [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenefits

mhneu 8y ago
Let's say "Many of America's tech companies were founded by immigrants, or the children of immigrants." Google, Sergey Brin Intel, Andy Grove Sun, Vinod Khosla Dropbox, Arash Ferdowsi Note that all of those came through Stanford or MIT. America's elite universities are hotbeds of immigrant talent that other countries would like to siphon off. The current war on america's multiculturalism (in pursuit of votes and political power) threatens to deeply damage America's universities, and thus its tech economy.