4 ms·

"If the US wants to maintain tech advantage, it'd better stop being so American!"

senttoschool 4y ago
Walk around Silicon Valley a little. How many high tech workers, CEOs, and founders are immigrants or children of immigrants? If I have to guess, I'd probably say 80%.
- linksnapzz 4y ago
  Today's Silicon Valley: the blueprint for a successful civilization. Are 80% of Guangzhou's high tech workers, CEOs and founders immigrants?
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    Nope. As far as I know, they've done everything with almost all internal talent.
    - linksnapzz 4y ago
      Fascinating. No need for immigrants at all. I wonder why...
      - sangnoir 4y ago
        Having your pick of talent from a population of 1.2B people would be my first guess
        linksnapzz 4y ago
        The US has ~300 million. Surely that's a sufficient pool to provide all the personnel needed.
        senttoschool 4y ago
        China (and East Asian countries in general) heavily emphasize STEM careers. There are more honor roll students in China than there are students in the US. There's no need for Chinese software companies to pay $500k/year for a single senior software engineer like some SV companies. There are a lot more them in China. Part of it is the East Asian culture. Part of it is that the US has been wealthy for so long that the student population choose arts and humanities over STEM. When your family is/was poor, you'd rather go into STEM. It's only a matter of time, in my humble opinion, that China surpasses the US in technology - especially with the US' tougher stance on immigration, polarizing society, and unfriendliness to immigrants. For now, the US is still clearly in the lead after a ~100 years head start.
        linksnapzz 4y ago
        So...cheap labor is the solution. Good to know. It must be very convenient for Chinese companies to have a deep pool of qualified talent that is unwilling to relocate in order to get a massive salary increase.
        dirtyid 4y ago
        Many are willing to relocate, mostly to US for SV wages, but US is increasingly hostile to PRC talent. That said, PRC pipeline generating as much STEM talent as OECD combined, too much for west to brain drain and absorb and % of talent with English fluency is limited. See recent record youth unemployment... it's not great but also not terrible problem to have. Meanwhile US has massive STEM gap but also increasing distaste for incubating PRC talent because espionage.
bee_rider 4y ago
America is the country with the world's largest total population of immigrants. As a percentage, we're up there, looking at https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati... many of the countries above us are pretty small, or EU members with freedom of movement among member states. So, it is more like saying "If the US wants to maintain tech advantage, it better keep being American!" (and of course there's nothing that makes a patriotic American happier than having people who want to join us).

Walk around Silicon Valley a little. How many high tech workers, CEOs, and founders are immigrants or children of immigrants? If I have to guess, I'd probably say 80%.

linksnapzz 4y ago
Today's Silicon Valley: the blueprint for a successful civilization. Are 80% of Guangzhou's high tech workers, CEOs and founders immigrants?
- senttoschool 4y ago
  Nope. As far as I know, they've done everything with almost all internal talent.
  - linksnapzz 4y ago
    Fascinating. No need for immigrants at all. I wonder why...
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      Having your pick of talent from a population of 1.2B people would be my first guess
      - linksnapzz 4y ago
        The US has ~300 million. Surely that's a sufficient pool to provide all the personnel needed.
        senttoschool 4y ago
        China (and East Asian countries in general) heavily emphasize STEM careers. There are more honor roll students in China than there are students in the US. There's no need for Chinese software companies to pay $500k/year for a single senior software engineer like some SV companies. There are a lot more them in China. Part of it is the East Asian culture. Part of it is that the US has been wealthy for so long that the student population choose arts and humanities over STEM. When your family is/was poor, you'd rather go into STEM. It's only a matter of time, in my humble opinion, that China surpasses the US in technology - especially with the US' tougher stance on immigration, polarizing society, and unfriendliness to immigrants. For now, the US is still clearly in the lead after a ~100 years head start.
        linksnapzz 4y ago
        So...cheap labor is the solution. Good to know. It must be very convenient for Chinese companies to have a deep pool of qualified talent that is unwilling to relocate in order to get a massive salary increase.
        dirtyid 4y ago
        Many are willing to relocate, mostly to US for SV wages, but US is increasingly hostile to PRC talent. That said, PRC pipeline generating as much STEM talent as OECD combined, too much for west to brain drain and absorb and % of talent with English fluency is limited. See recent record youth unemployment... it's not great but also not terrible problem to have. Meanwhile US has massive STEM gap but also increasing distaste for incubating PRC talent because espionage.

bee_rider 4y ago

America is the country with the world's largest total population of immigrants. As a percentage, we're up there, looking at https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati... many of the countries above us are pretty small, or EU members with freedom of movement among member states. So, it is more like saying "If the US wants to maintain tech advantage, it better keep being American!" (and of course there's nothing that makes a patriotic American happier than having people who want to join us).