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The importance of immigrant “talent” is clearly overstated. Japan became a powerhouse in the 20th century with virtually no immigration and a significantly smal

by rayiner 9mo ago

The importance of immigrant “talent” is clearly overstated. Japan became a powerhouse in the 20th century with virtually no immigration and a significantly smaller population than the US. China is becoming a technological powerhouse with no immigration as well.

koito17 9mo ago
Even more importantly, there's just a lot of people in China. New York City's population is approximately 8.8 million; that is the scale of a mid-sized Chinese city. The population exceeds 1 billion, which is difficult to comprehend in terms of scale. The reference I like to use is: 1 million seconds is ~11 days, whereas 1 billion seconds is ~31 years. To put it bluntly, China quite literally doesn't need (nor wants) the average software dev on HN. The immigrants they would likely want are those with expertise in much harder technical disciplines (semiconductor R&D etc.)
- rayiner 9mo ago
  Size isn’t that important either, or else India would be rich and Taiwan wouldn’t be. It’s just not a numbers game.
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  - _carbyau_ 9mo ago
    It isn't just a numbers game or investment (money, reputation) game but both. China is working multiple technologies hard. Taiwan doesn't have the people to match that breadth. India isn't matching that investment.
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notarobot123 9mo ago
I think the corporate/globalist perspective looks at the liquidity of talent as well as cost. Having a native talent pipeline is possible, but it's expensive and takes a long time to create. On top of that, it's not very flexible if an industry suddenly shifts. Re-training is a much more difficult than simply hiring a different set of immigrants. It's important (at least to corporations) because it makes a significant difference for how quickly a company/industry can adapt and evolve to stay competitive in global markets.

by rayiner 9mo ago

koito17 9mo ago

Even more importantly, there's just a lot of people in China. New York City's population is approximately 8.8 million; that is the scale of a mid-sized Chinese city. The population exceeds 1 billion, which is difficult to comprehend in terms of scale. The reference I like to use is: 1 million seconds is ~11 days, whereas 1 billion seconds is ~31 years. To put it bluntly, China quite literally doesn't need (nor wants) the average software dev on HN. The immigrants they would likely want are those with expertise in much harder technical disciplines (semiconductor R&D etc.)

rayiner 9mo ago
Size isn’t that important either, or else India would be rich and Taiwan wouldn’t be. It’s just not a numbers game.
- deleted 9mo ago
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- _carbyau_ 9mo ago
  It isn't just a numbers game or investment (money, reputation) game but both. China is working multiple technologies hard. Taiwan doesn't have the people to match that breadth. India isn't matching that investment.

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notarobot123 9mo ago

I think the corporate/globalist perspective looks at the liquidity of talent as well as cost. Having a native talent pipeline is possible, but it's expensive and takes a long time to create. On top of that, it's not very flexible if an industry suddenly shifts. Re-training is a much more difficult than simply hiring a different set of immigrants. It's important (at least to corporations) because it makes a significant difference for how quickly a company/industry can adapt and evolve to stay competitive in global markets.