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Study: Immigrants and their kids founded 45% of U.S. Fortune 500 companies
- shrikant 7y agoI've flagged this post because (IMHO): 1) Doesn't belong on HN. 2) Comments so far are unsubstantive -- ranging from "middlebrow dismissal" to flamebait. 3) Doesn't appear to be conducive to any sort of useful discussion. Edit: Clearly I've struck a nerve someplace.
- jdavis703 7y agoThis article seems pretty relevant. 4 of the 5 tech companies I've worked for were founded by immigrants. This website is about entrepreneurship, and talking about the pipeline of entrepreneurs seems no different than talking about the pipeline of say women and POCs in the software engineering pipeline. It might be controversial, but we have to have these discussions.
- will4274 7y agoI tend to agree. This study has some pretty serious methodology problems that the article ignores completely. It seems like somebody with an agenda decided to fund some science and skip the rigor.
- gingabriska 7y agoBut it isn't a proof that if the immigrants did not found these companies, someone local wouldn't have found them either. Maybe it had taken some more time but, locals would have ended up setting up these either way. A big maybe. China is an example that screams, immigrants do not matter much for economic success.
- 256 7y agoThere are a lot of other differences between America and China that make this a terrible comparison.
- gingabriska 7y agoJapan, Korea, Germany are also in line and also India (with successful space program without immigrants). There are many countries which are successful without immigrants, some of them are even democracies.
- magduf 7y ago>Japan, Korea, Germany are also in line and also India (with successful space program without immigrants). This is just plain wrong, in the case of Germany. Germany has a huge immigrant population, and has since WWII when they brought in tons of Turks to be laborers there. There's an enormous Turkish population in Germany, and it's not new. Germany probably would not be where it is now without them. Japan and Korea don't have many immigrants, it's true, but they were both occupied by the US for some time (and Japan still is, in a way, as is Germany).
- dagaci 7y agoI hope your not including India in your list as an example of ethnic uniformity, are you even aware of the vast number of different cultures and languages spoken in India? India stands as the original melting pot since ancient times. Oh and it also has the one of the largest immigrant population in the modern world. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/03/india-is-a-top-source-and-destination-for-worlds-migrants/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/03/india-is-a-...
- llamathrowaway 7y ago
- hartator 7y agoChina economy is also an example that doesn’t scream for creativity.
- stunt 7y ago> Maybe it had taken some more time but, locals would have ended up setting up these either way. We're not talking about some local businesses. These are pretty much global companies with exceptional success. If Alphabet/Google was founded in the EU, it didn't matter how many small competitors would pop out elseware as they are currently.
- williesleg 7y agoOf course they were legal immigrants.
- spamizbad 7y agoSo? I'd probably be the founder and CEO of my own company if an immigrant didn't agree to do the same work for less pay. /s
- dsirola 7y agoThe correct number is actually 100% (or close to it). It just depends how many generations back the family immigrated.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThe study's talking specifically about first and second generation immigrants.
- cheeky78 7y agoAre we talking about Immigrants that went through the legal process?
- pjc50 7y agoThe legal process is a very movable barrier and has changed over time to make it much harder. It might be interesting to ask "how many of these people would, if they had applied under the current rules rather than those of the time, have been turned away?"
- ta777778 7y agoActually it used to be much harder - you used to have to be northern European, educated or affluent.
- pgcj_poster 7y agoIn most cases, don't you still have to educated and/or affluent?
- pandaman 7y agoFrom the 2015-2017 yearbook [1]: ~750K family based immigrants with no requirement for education and wealth requirements in the range of being slightly above poverty for some categories. ~120K refugees, with no requirements ~30K asylees, with no requirements ~50K diversity, with high school education requirement vs 140K employment based, who you might call educated and/or affluent as it includes investors and people with advanced degrees. 1. https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2017/table6 https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2017/tab...
- pgcj_poster 7y agoI'm not sure that this actually contradicts what I said. I follow the subreddit r/IWantOut. Every day, someone asks about coming to the US, and we tell pretty much all of them "better get a Masters in Engineering first." The fact is, most people who would like to immigrate to the US are not refugees or related to US citizens. For most of them, the bar actually is that high. That we accept a lot of people from categories that not many people fall into, including ones that I would barely count as immigration (eg. "Child of a US citizen"), doesn't have much impact on the general case. Additionally, I think it's important to consider the practical barriers in the system, not just the text of the laws. From what I've heard, the paperwork and fees involved can cost thousands of dollars, and the regulations are so complex that you need either top-notch English reading skills, or a lawyer.
- metalchianti 7y agoDefinitely some selection bias. Many wealthy people in the US are immigrants. Also, many wealthy people probably choose to immigrate to the US to start their business because of lower barriers to entry. EDIT: Also, if this [1] is correct, 13.7% of people in the US are immigrants. So how many people are immigrants OR first-gen? And since ANY of the founders can be immigrants/first-gen, more founders means higher likelihood that it fits this criteria. [1]https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested...
- pjc50 7y agoNot all these people were wealthy before they arrived; Andy Grove of Intel was a Hungarian refugee, for example.
- sidlls 7y agoSimilarly, not everyone is less than one sigma away from the mean in a normal distribution.
- weberc2 7y agoIs this meant to be a rebuttal? It's entirely compatible with the parent comment...
- ilikehurdles 7y agoI have a hypothesis related to this. I believe that surviving being a child refugee in America is something that really brings out the grit in a person. Seeing the things your family goes through to provide a normal life for you in a strange and new place, overcoming ethnic biases, language barriers, and life on government assistance really brings out the attitudes of drive and perseverance toward reaching one's goals. I'd be curious to see how the likeliness of refugees to reach higher income brackets over their lives compares to native-born Americans.
- hartator 7y ago
- bruceb 7y agoImmigrants is such a broad term its nearly meaningless. From the article: "The share of the most successful and globally-recognized U.S. companies that have immigrant founders is growing, according to NAE's Hanna Siegel and Andrew Lim, while the Trump administration has tried to make it more difficult for immigrants to come to the U.S., often claiming that they take American jobs and lower wages." No mention what type of immigrant founded these companies (and by founded, it could mean they were one of a couple cofounders) Most likely they were already highly educated or pursing an advanced degree in the US. When you go to the source material from New American Economy think tank, they don't have any links to explain how they created this report, nothing about methodology. Its just hey believe us.
- mtmail 7y ago"Since our first New American Fortune 500 report in 2011 [..]" "In this year's brief, we update our analysis, looking at the New American companies that made the 2019 Fortune 500 list." So the methodology, even a table listing every founder is in the linked 2011 report https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/new-american-fortune-500-june-2011.pdf https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/0...
- bruceb 7y ago2011, where is it for this year's report?
- whichimmigrants 7y agoThese studies of immigrant company founders are always accidentally white supremacist. Don’t look too closely at where these immigrants came from or you will have to retract.
- sigzero 7y agoWithout a breakdown between those immigrants that came through the system legally versus other means, I don't see the real benefit to this data. Edit: I emailed the author of the piece and she confirmed that there was no breakdown.
- rdlecler1 7y agoI can’t stand bad reasoning even if I sympathize with the objective so to make immigration case to Trump supporters you’re going to have to break out those that came to the U.S. through legal and illegal means. You’re also going to have to show them that a meaningful portion of entrepreneurs came from Latin America because that’s where much of the illegal immigration comes from.
- sudosteph 7y agoIn case it's unclear from the title, the study showed that 45% of Fortune 500 companies had at least 1 founder that was an immigrant or child of an immigrant. For example, Facebook is considered "founded by an immigrant" in this categorization, which sort of surprised me at first.
- blululu 7y agoThe title is a bit misleading. I get the sense that the data analysis is pretty biased toward proving a point. Having a single founder who is a second generation immigrant is not equal to having all founders being third generation + immigrants. Taking the total percentage of all founders of Fortune 500 companies might be more reasonable.
- daveslash 7y agoAgreed. I had to double check to see if Zuckerberg was an immigrant. He's not. But at least one of Facebook's founders is. You're right - it is misleading.
- kediz 7y agoThe publisher of this "Study" is from New American Economy, a think tank "fighting for smart federal, state, and local immigration policies that help grow our economy and create jobs for all Americans." So I don't think it is 100% neutral in terms of its view on immigrants.
- save_ferris 7y agoSerious question: what does a neutral view on immigrants look like? How does one take a view on immigrants without aligning with one side of the debate? You bring up a valid point in identifying the authors of this study. I'm just not sure what a truly neutral position in that debate would look like.
- jdavis703 7y agoThere's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt out there. Everything from "immigrants commit crimes" to "I work at companies that treat H1Bs terribly" to "no country has ever had open borders." At the end of the day many of these statements are provable or disprovable by facts, which is what a neutral position would look like.
- save_ferris 7y agoI agree that those statements are demonstrably false, but you’d be immediately accused of pro-immigration sentiment by elements of the right for taking such a position, which is why even discussing this issue is difficult. Facts no longer drive these conversations, and it’s pretty unsettling to watch.
- joshuaheard 7y agoMaybe if the study was not published by a pro-immigrant think tank, but was published by a think tank focused on, say, economics or social policy.
- komali2 7y agoBut, think tanks exist to explore specific issues within their realm of concern. An "economic think tank" that did a bunch of research into, and then published a study on, immigration, would then be an "economic and immigration think tank." Frankly I'm annoyed that an organization can't declare itself "concerned with" a subject without people leveling claims of bias. Why would they do the study if they didn't care about studying immigration? If there's an issue with the research, find it and argue against it. But "they're biased," nah, I don't bite.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tehlike 7y agoI think there is some bias due to historical events. Ww2 caused a lot of jewish immigrants to emmigrate from europe and some emigrated later from russia. They have been very successful in general. I am sure this particular population already skews the statistics already.
- onion2k 7y agoI don't think many of those immigrants would be counted in this study. No founders would be in that group, and very few founders would have parents in that group. Possibly grandparents, but the study is only counting first and second generations.
- tehlike 7y agoSergey brin emigrated from russia due to rising antisemitism in russia. That was the first example i thought of. I dont know the ratio, it was a hunch.
- qntty 7y agoNo founders of Fortune 500 companies would be in that group? Why do you say that?
- onion2k 7y agoYou're absolutely right. I'm wrong. It's very likely some people would be in that group.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- js8 7y agoIt's not just Jewish people, though. Smart people in general emigrate sooner when a country is turning sour.
- tehlike 7y ago
- harryh 7y agoThe way they handle companies with > 1 founder is a bit weird. If there is at least one immigrant / 1st gen American it's counted in the "founded by" category. And then the 45% is taken by looking at things just at the company level. I think it would tell a clearer picture to count the total number of founders and count the percentage of people who were immigrants / 1st gen americans. Then, to give context, you would want to compare this number to the % of people living in the US who are immigrants / 1st gen Americans.
- haasteagle 7y agoAgreed. Makes it seem as if a 1st/2nd gen immigrant was the sole founder of every company listed.
- sudosteph 7y agoAgreed. It makes me think they might have used that selection criteria specifically in order to provide an out-sized visualization about the impact of immigration on the founding of US companies. Seeing the actual numbers on the the founder-level would be more informative and probably also let me shed my doubts about whether or not those who created the study were doing it a biased manner. I also think it's weird that Amazon was counted as "child of an immigrant". He was adopted as a child by his immigrant step-father after his mother's marriage - but he definitely would have been in America regardless of immigration policy...
- panpanna 7y agoAmazon? You mean Apple?
- Kalium 7y ago> The way they handle companies with > 1 founder is a bit weird. If there is at least one immigrant / 1st gen American it's counted in the "founded by" category. And then the 45% is taken by looking at things just at the company level. Ah! I saw the 45% number and immediately wondered if this particular statistical slight of hand was being used. Thank you.
- 7y ago
- lazyjones 7y agoSomeone should interview those founders and ask them about their views on illegal immigration.
- cabaalis 7y ago> Someone should interview those founders and ask them about their views on illegal immigration. An important distinction the media never makes. To actually get at the real controversy, they should study how many of these founders jumped a fence and used a fake social security number.
- swordsmith 7y agoExactly. It's offensive to put legal immigrants (at least to my family and people we know) in the same category as illegal immigrants, and use our success to justify illegal immigration.
- bwb 7y agoI kinda just want to say duh to this, we are a nation of immigrants.
- konopoly 7y agoIts strange to see Amazon on the list. Bezos was born to American parents but after they divorced his mother remarried to a Cuban immigrant. I dont think that makes him the son of immigrants.
- sudosteph 7y agoEspecially not when the study itself is clearly intended to be used as evidence to support a particular position on immigration policy. Makes it seem a bit cherry-picked.
- rpedela 7y agoWasn't he raised by his Cuban stepfather? If so, I think that counts.
- keketi 7y agoSome of the companies are quite old and have a complicated history of mergers and acquisitions. For example both AT&T and Verizon are descendants of Bell Telephone Company, established in 1879. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_AT%26T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_AT%26T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications
- lukaa 7y agoI think problem is not in immigration but in type of immigration.So it would be nice not to stop by just say immigrants founded companies.It should be examined how many of that immigrants are highly educated and have parents like that and how many just enter USA in uncotrolled immigration.
- shados 7y agoI remember one of the first time the company I work for had a "First gen in tech" event. We had a funny discussion about how, technically, I was part of the target audience. I'm as much of a white western dude as they come, but I'm technically on a green card, my parents are not in the US, I'm the first of my family to be in tech. Checks all the boxes. In practice I'm definitely NOT the kind of person these things are aimed at. Being a white Canadian dude who just moved a few hours south because the job market was more interesting isn't exactly a life changing experience or even challenging. Still, if I founded a company, I'd be on that list. Worse, if my children were to found a company, they'd be on that list too, even though they wouldn't have an ounce of hardship (at least from birth situation) or diversity in their bones.
- jdavis703 7y agoThat's fine, you're still a valid part of the immigration discussion. For example as an American when I go to Canada I get more hassle than when I'm in Europe. If anything I'd assume it would be easier to go between Canada and the U.S. which are a lot more culturally similar than say Germany and France.
- shados 7y agoFascinating. Ill admit I've never traveled to Europe. What part is easier? My wife (an American citizen) has gone to Canada fairly frequently and clearing the custom is a quick formality. My narrow minded self can only imagine that short of not having a customs at all, it can't get a whole lot easier.
- 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- RenRav 7y agoAren't already established/rich and successful foreigners more likely to migrate and set up shop here? 45% shouldn't be a surprise if so, you are basically comparing against the cream of the crop from every other country.
- tracer4201 7y agoI care less about what anyone thinks is likely and care more about the actual data. My parents were immigrants. My mother raised kids while my dad had two jobs that paid minimum wage. My annual comp at my day job is > $400K. My older sibling is a medical doctor. My family certainly came from no privilege at all. The only advantage we had was my father getting the opportunity to immigrate to the US. Saying that 45% is all “cream of the crop” is a pathetic level of mental gymnastics.
- RenRav 7y agoYou're probably right, I forgot there's a cap to EB 5 visas. Those immigrants I meant as the "cream of the crop."
- cmoscoe 7y agoOne issue with this method is that the Fortune 500 has companies in it that are hundreds of years old. Only 26 of them were founded this century[1]. Alexander Hamilton founded one of them. The circumstances today could be somewhat different. That said, as a non-american looking at starting a company, America still looks like a pretty great place to do it, to the extent that I still sometimes think of moving. [1] https://fortune.com/longform/fortune-500-through-the-ages/ https://fortune.com/longform/fortune-500-through-the-ages/
- wdn 7y agoThis "study" is biased and taken out of context. I don't think anyone has issues with immigrants like most liberal medias portrait we do. I am an immigrant and I have no issue with immigrant that come here legally. What I do have a problem is the invasion of illegal immigrations, yes, it is an invasion. The congresses here is stopping the president taking action because he is in a different political party.
- pgcj_poster 7y agoCould you explain what you mean by "invasion"?
- spunker540 7y agoPro-immigration reading: this is great and shows how much value immigrants add to America. Anti-immigration reading: this just goes to show that there are too many immigrants in America.
- ch_123 7y agoUnless 55% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by Native Americans, I would expect the percentage of companies founded by "immigrants or their children" in the US to be much higher than 45%
- williesleg 7y agoSo tired of this polarizing bullshit. Just go someplace that shares your values and don't post this shit here. Wtf is this Facebook now?
- bazooka_penguin 7y agoIs it broken down by origin, class, etc? If we parametrize financial success then it may make sense to prioritize certain countries, classes, etc for immigration while filtering out the less successful, for the sake economy, because that's what's important of course.
- pgcj_poster 7y agoI don't think it's fair to assume that the economy is the main thing that's important. A lot of conservatives would say that the main issue is culture, not economics. On the flip-side, I think migration is a human right, and this discussion is sort of like arguing about whether abolition would hurt the cotton industry.
- lota-putty 7y ago98% of Americans(USA) are non-natives. I would like to know if any of 2% natives made it to fortune 500. Anyone?
- eesmith 7y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085970 from 4 years ago, "Most high tech companies are founded by founded by First/2nd gen immigrants" and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11306290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11306290 from 3 years ago, "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups". Some of the same analysis questions bring brought up now were also brought up in those earlier threads.
- stunt 7y agoit seems many have missed the point, or at least that’s not how I read this. This is not about if immigrants didn’t found company X, an American could do it (well that’s valid about crimes and drugs too! Right?). It’s also not about if they were first generation or second generation. I believe the study shows immigrants overall had a positive contribution and big impact. Either by themselves or their family. And this is a good study for people that only see immigrants as a source of crimes and negative impacts.
- bufferoverflow 7y agoLet's not compare unchecked immigration with what the US has been doing for many decades. H1B is a very selective process, it filters for the educated and the active. It's no surprise so many of them succeed in the US.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoGoing Back How far? AT&T was founded by an immigrant for example and Henry Fords Mum Was an Immigrant.
- ta777778 7y agoBold move - to use the positive results of pre-1965 immigration policy that selected for educated and affluent Europeans - as if it's an argument for a /more/ open immigration policy. Incredible and stupid.
- mAEStro-paNDa 7y agoFor everyone claiming bias, it's pretty clearly stated in the first sentence: >...according to a new study by New American Economy, a bipartisan pro-immigration group. What I'm not seeing much of in the comments is how the debate around immigration has come to a very alarming place, with most of it having nothing to do with what actually occurs in reality. In my honest opinion, that discussion is far more important than the specifics of this study.
- RaceWon 7y agoSure, my family emigrated here: my father, who was born here as a first generation American--was just that; an American. He had No trace of an Italian accent (altough his parents barley spoke intelligible English), and in fact he forgot how to even speak Italian. He fought in WW2 as did his brothers (who were also American and spoke flawless English). They (my father and his brothers all got together and started a business after the war--though not a Fortune 500 company they earned an above average mid income living). I contrast this with literally dozens of people I know, some good friends of mine who are here to only make money so they can return back to the native country--they do not consider themselves to be American, nor do they consider America their home, and indeed still refer to their native land as "my country". American can function as a Nation with some residents having this visitor attitude--but Not with 10s of millions of people who simply reside here. It's common sense.
- mhet 7y agoTechnically, everyone is immigrant. Not sure why people call themselves native Americans ever. That entire country built on blood and violence of some guys that had some gold in their pocket to buy ships and sale swords. Thats it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- race-realist 7y agoGreat article! It's worth mentioning that the founders of most of the immigrant-founded companies are ostensibly white. I can't think of any of these companies that has a non-white founder. I only say this because articles such as these are wont to use the data as support for mass immigration, which usually is non-whites into white countries.
- dfsegoat 7y agoFact: Immigrants and their kids founded the U.S.
- galkk 7y agoChild of an immigrant? Come on, let's add then grandchildren, friends, lovers, people from the same middle school etc. Most of the time those kids are 100% Americans, who often might not even know the language of their parents. Source: I'm an immigrant, and the situation: "kids are speaking Russian with me, but between themselves they prefer to speak English, and don't ask me about their writing skills in Russian" is very common among my circle.
- lorriman 7y agoThis is only an issue because Donald Trump is misrepresented as being racist and anti-immigration when he has only talked of illegal immigration and the problem of Islamic migrants (ie, the Islamic version of democracy which is not compatible with any Western Liberal democracy).