This is an excellent point. There are enough engineers out there who reach a certain stage in their life (kids, family, bored of stupid "benefits" like xbox, fr

This is an excellent point. There are enough engineers out there who reach a certain stage in their life (kids, family, bored of stupid "benefits" like xbox, free lunches and worthless stock options) basically say fuck you, pay me. It is not that startups can't find people at any price, it is just that really really good people could work on your interesting problem but they could also work on another interesting problem that pays them a market rate. > Currently these "lotteries" are unwilling or unable to increase their payouts. Unless you can create a glut of customers/engineers that are somehow constrained from starting their own lotteries, I don't see why the lack of engineers willing to work at startups would change. I don't know whether you made this point unknowingly or not: However, the whole deal with the way an H1B is designed right now is that it is close to impossible to start your own lottery. You have to sponsor your own visa which the way nascent startups work is close to impossible.