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But since we don't have a visa that allows for entrepreneurial founders to immigrate here, how can we have examples to highlight their potential contributions?

But since we don't have a visa that allows for entrepreneurial founders to immigrate here, how can we have examples to highlight their potential contributions? The closest thing we can do is point to similar people. Personally, I think that Vinod Khosla and Manu Kumar are better examples. I'm of the understanding that Khosla didn't have a valid visa when Sun was founded, but an exemption was made because of the sheer success of the company from nearly day 1. The other thing I want to look at is people like Robin Li of Baidu, American educated, employed by American companies, but when it came time to create a company, he went home. Possibly, even likely, that was because a company serving Chinese should be based in China, but it's certain that since he didn't have a green card, he wouldn't be able to get a visa as a founder to stay here. America loses when people who could stay here to found companies return to their country to create jobs and foreign competition there.

georgemcbay 15y ago
I don't disagree with you at all on the immigration issues and I fully support fast track immigration & citizenship for high-value immigrants, I just think it is intellectually dishonest to use 3 founders who all immigrated before they were teenagers as examples for a point the author was trying to make when they don't really fit the narrative. That the author didn't even mention the age that these men immigrated makes it feel like she was trying to pull a fast one on the reader who has heard the names but isn't really familiar with their stories (which will be most readers). As far as Baidu goes, I don't think it could exist as a non-Chinese company, and more because of China's government policies than the USA's.
- HistoryInAction 15y ago
  The fit the narrative of 'immigrants are statistically hungrier for startup success,' specifically referencing this line in the article: "According to statistics from Partnership for a New American Economy, 40% of Fortune 500 companies were created by immigrants or their children." From there, the author goes on to say that if the immigrants and their children are more likely to start companies, why are we preventing young adults from coming here to start companies, especially if they are validated by making something people want as demonstrated by either VC validation or pure revenue numbers? The third path of Startup Visa 2011 is for people valued enough to receive a US education or H1-B visa, as currently they are not valued enough to be allowed to start a company, with no visa existing for them to do so. I find it a bit of a stretch, but not intellectually dishonest, though I do see why it's reasonable to think so. I take the point on Baidu, but that's the sort of company I'm looking to promote as a counterpoint when we pitch our next follow-ups to ABC and NBC after Amit's story.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    The main thing that seems like a huge stretch is that those are good examples for an idea of a "parental visa", giving visas to immigrants with children who you think are likely to be good parents, whose kids will then grow up in U.S. society and be highly successful. Not as good examples in support of the "entrepreneur visa" idea, which expects the people receiving the visa to themselves start a company in the short term, something that didn't actually happen in any of those examples.
    - HistoryInAction 15y ago
      I hear you, there are significant flaws in the examples she uses. I still think they're valid in demonstrating a different point than "entrepreneur visa." Her point is that there is an 'immigrant' demographic, and this demographic makes for good founders. Then, and only then, she makes the point that an entrepreneur visa for founders is a good idea. The author uses immigrants' children/very young immigrants not immediately connected to the plan of starting a company to reference the entire immigrant demographic as a whole, since current US policies make it extremely improbable we can come up with good positive examples of a young immigrant starting a company, because US immigration rules prevent this situation from occurring. Her logic is as follows: -Fact: "According to statistics from Partnership for a New American Economy, 40% of Fortune 500 companies were created by immigrants or their children." -Examples: Immigrants' children starting Fortune 500 companies The logic here is using the immigrants' children to support the point that both immigrants and their children start companies, since the only direct immigrants who started the companies were either much older and already gone through the green card or broke the rules to start their company. One of the major problems in our advocacy is that there is this big negative space that we /think/ can be filled. By definition, because it's a negative space, there are no positive examples to point to in making the argument. Positive examples strengthen any abstract argument, so they must be made. In this case, the author goes to young immigrants not immediately connected to startups to make the case that immigrants as a class make for good founders. From there, the author makes one of her major points: -Argument: US immigration prevents people from starting companies shortly after entering the country due to current visa rules -Example: Amit Aharoni/ABC story -Conclusion: Therefore we should change policy to allow more people like Amit in, hopefully creating more successes in this 'immigrant' demographic.
muzz 15y ago
The claim of the article is much stronger than that-- the claim is that if we don't let them in, they will form their companies abroad, and there are simply just not very many examples of that (sure, we can all point to foreign clones of American companies, but it's not likely/possible that those could have been feasibly based here, due to market access, regulations, operations etc). > " Innovative individuals will move their operations abroad to cultivate next ideas."

georgemcbay 15y ago

I don't disagree with you at all on the immigration issues and I fully support fast track immigration & citizenship for high-value immigrants, I just think it is intellectually dishonest to use 3 founders who all immigrated before they were teenagers as examples for a point the author was trying to make when they don't really fit the narrative. That the author didn't even mention the age that these men immigrated makes it feel like she was trying to pull a fast one on the reader who has heard the names but isn't really familiar with their stories (which will be most readers). As far as Baidu goes, I don't think it could exist as a non-Chinese company, and more because of China's government policies than the USA's.

HistoryInAction 15y ago
The fit the narrative of 'immigrants are statistically hungrier for startup success,' specifically referencing this line in the article: "According to statistics from Partnership for a New American Economy, 40% of Fortune 500 companies were created by immigrants or their children." From there, the author goes on to say that if the immigrants and their children are more likely to start companies, why are we preventing young adults from coming here to start companies, especially if they are validated by making something people want as demonstrated by either VC validation or pure revenue numbers? The third path of Startup Visa 2011 is for people valued enough to receive a US education or H1-B visa, as currently they are not valued enough to be allowed to start a company, with no visa existing for them to do so. I find it a bit of a stretch, but not intellectually dishonest, though I do see why it's reasonable to think so. I take the point on Baidu, but that's the sort of company I'm looking to promote as a counterpoint when we pitch our next follow-ups to ABC and NBC after Amit's story.
- _delirium 15y ago
  The main thing that seems like a huge stretch is that those are good examples for an idea of a "parental visa", giving visas to immigrants with children who you think are likely to be good parents, whose kids will then grow up in U.S. society and be highly successful. Not as good examples in support of the "entrepreneur visa" idea, which expects the people receiving the visa to themselves start a company in the short term, something that didn't actually happen in any of those examples.
  - HistoryInAction 15y ago
    I hear you, there are significant flaws in the examples she uses. I still think they're valid in demonstrating a different point than "entrepreneur visa." Her point is that there is an 'immigrant' demographic, and this demographic makes for good founders. Then, and only then, she makes the point that an entrepreneur visa for founders is a good idea. The author uses immigrants' children/very young immigrants not immediately connected to the plan of starting a company to reference the entire immigrant demographic as a whole, since current US policies make it extremely improbable we can come up with good positive examples of a young immigrant starting a company, because US immigration rules prevent this situation from occurring. Her logic is as follows: -Fact: "According to statistics from Partnership for a New American Economy, 40% of Fortune 500 companies were created by immigrants or their children." -Examples: Immigrants' children starting Fortune 500 companies The logic here is using the immigrants' children to support the point that both immigrants and their children start companies, since the only direct immigrants who started the companies were either much older and already gone through the green card or broke the rules to start their company. One of the major problems in our advocacy is that there is this big negative space that we /think/ can be filled. By definition, because it's a negative space, there are no positive examples to point to in making the argument. Positive examples strengthen any abstract argument, so they must be made. In this case, the author goes to young immigrants not immediately connected to startups to make the case that immigrants as a class make for good founders. From there, the author makes one of her major points: -Argument: US immigration prevents people from starting companies shortly after entering the country due to current visa rules -Example: Amit Aharoni/ABC story -Conclusion: Therefore we should change policy to allow more people like Amit in, hopefully creating more successes in this 'immigrant' demographic.

muzz 15y ago

The claim of the article is much stronger than that-- the claim is that if we don't let them in, they will form their companies abroad, and there are simply just not very many examples of that (sure, we can all point to foreign clones of American companies, but it's not likely/possible that those could have been feasibly based here, due to market access, regulations, operations etc). > " Innovative individuals will move their operations abroad to cultivate next ideas."