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Great list! Two obvious misses: Tesla and Google.

by cmer 6y ago

ComputerGuru 6y ago
I don’t think Musk was on an H1B visa when he came from Canada? I don’t think Page and Brin were H-1Bs either, as they were PhD students at the time.
- ponker 6y ago
  And Page isn’t an immigrant.
kolanos 6y ago
If you're referring to Elon Musk, he is not a Tesla founder. Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, both California born. Musk was an early Tesla investor.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  The founder flair is unimportant in this example. Musk rescued Tesla from poor leadership and financial insolvency, enabling it to become the largest auto maker by market cap [1]. This is not to dismiss the contributions of Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpon to Tesla's growth, but to recognize that at times a transition is necessary for an org to continue to evolve and/or survive (when this transition occurred, Tesla needed to rapidly shift from primarily R&D to a sales focused organization to get revenue in the door). Let’s not get hung up on the Valley signaling around the word “founder” as if it's some sort of deity status. It's just a different amount of shares and share class on the cap table. Steve Jobs was an Apple founder, but Gates stepped in to bring Apple back from the brink with a $150MM investment [2]. Bill Gates doesn't have a "founder" title for Apple, but he was their savior. As always, there is nuance. TLDR It is valid to use Elon Musk as an example of a successful immigrant and "the American dream", just not in the context of the H1B visa. Musk himself has said he couldn’t have been wildly successful anywhere else. [1] https://electrek.co/2020/06/10/tesla-tsla-becomes-wolds-most-valuable-automaker-hits-1000-per-share/ https://electrek.co/2020/06/10/tesla-tsla-becomes-wolds-most... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh...

Great list! Two obvious misses: Tesla and Google.

by cmer 6y ago

Great list! Two obvious misses: Tesla and Google.

I don’t think Musk was on an H1B visa when he came from Canada? I don’t think Page and Brin were H-1Bs either, as they were PhD students at the time.

ponker 6y ago
And Page isn’t an immigrant.

kolanos 6y ago

If you're referring to Elon Musk, he is not a Tesla founder. Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, both California born. Musk was an early Tesla investor.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
The founder flair is unimportant in this example. Musk rescued Tesla from poor leadership and financial insolvency, enabling it to become the largest auto maker by market cap [1]. This is not to dismiss the contributions of Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpon to Tesla's growth, but to recognize that at times a transition is necessary for an org to continue to evolve and/or survive (when this transition occurred, Tesla needed to rapidly shift from primarily R&D to a sales focused organization to get revenue in the door). Let’s not get hung up on the Valley signaling around the word “founder” as if it's some sort of deity status. It's just a different amount of shares and share class on the cap table. Steve Jobs was an Apple founder, but Gates stepped in to bring Apple back from the brink with a $150MM investment [2]. Bill Gates doesn't have a "founder" title for Apple, but he was their savior. As always, there is nuance. TLDR It is valid to use Elon Musk as an example of a successful immigrant and "the American dream", just not in the context of the H1B visa. Musk himself has said he couldn’t have been wildly successful anywhere else. [1] https://electrek.co/2020/06/10/tesla-tsla-becomes-wolds-most-valuable-automaker-hits-1000-per-share/ https://electrek.co/2020/06/10/tesla-tsla-becomes-wolds-most... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-wh...