7 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg launches FWD.us political action group

39 points by Fletch137 14y ago

thomasjames 14y ago
You'd think these companies all had a vested interest in underpaying a bunch of H-1B visa holders or something...
- niggler 14y ago
  "underpaying a bunch of H-1B visa holders or something" That's true when they don't have the money. Now that they do, increasing the wage makes it harder for startups to hire qualified people.
- untog 14y ago
  Contrary to common belief (common meme?) a lot of H1B employees are not underpaid. Particularly at large companies like Facebook and Google. Weird consulting shops in New Jersey, on the other hand...
  - thomasjames 14y ago
    I just see this as somehow linking the manufactured labor shortage tech companies have been trying to whine about for years with the very real problem of illegal immigration and the social consequences that brings... consequences which I do not think anyone on that list of people cares about. They would have better luck creating this need out of no where when the country was closer to full employment, but the US is a long, long ways off from that.
    - untog 14y ago
      How do you figure that the labour shortage in tech is manufactured? In any case, everyone has been fighting to separate skilled immigration from ilegal immigration- them being combined is what has held back reform. There's broad political agreement that skilled immigration needs reform, but until recently no politician has wanted to touch it for fear of being "soft on illegals".
      - thomasjames 14y ago
        After the dot-com bubble many people were not hired again. We are not even five years out from the greatest recession in many decades. Many of these people have fundamental technical skills. They might know more perl than most and not have much love for ruby hipsters, but they understand the permanent aspects of programming and related disciplines, like the logic behind it. I think a lot of this comes down to Silicon Valley's ageism problem (you know the one no one here ever talks about). There are many technical workers who people think are outdated, despite being responsible for the first P.C. and later internet revolution. For the record, I am 24, and such things do not affect me. But I think opinion here might be skewed on an age basis.
    - jisaacstone 14y ago
      Illegal immigration is such a hot-button issue in the us that is taints all immigration discussions. It makes me sad and frustrated, but people cannot seem to understand the numerous important immigration issues which have nothing to do with Mexicans jumping over fences. Personally I think the legal immigration nonsense is much more important, but the masses and the media disagree.
    - 13b9f227ecf0 14y ago
      I'm not sure what ties these people to the USA. They could set up shop in any of a dozen places and import whoever they want. They have narrow elitist interests and don't seem to care about the American society at large. If they did they wouldn't be so tone deaf on an issue like mass immigration, which an overwhelming majority of the population deeply opposes.
  - Uhhrrr 14y ago
    As someone who worked at a weird consulting shop in Fremont, I can affirm that underpaid H1B employees exist.
  - aznjons 14y ago
    Even if H1B employees are not underpaid, artificially increasing the supply of highly-demanded technical talent prevents tech giants from needing to raise compensation across the board. Artificially seems to be a justifiable characterization for a number of reasons. 1. At least intuitively, raising wages should attract educated/intellectually capable people from other industries domestically. The corporations have already been reprimanded by the DoJ for instituting anti-competitive practices regarding poaching. 2. Attracting technical talent from other countries would seem to decrease the supply of talent in those places, which may have relatively less resources than the U.S. to train and retain technically skilled workers; what would be the consequences in the source countries? 3. Finally, attracting highly educated workers to a specific industry and specific corporations with hefty resources concentrates a relatively/currently inelastic supply of skilled workers. More explicitly stated, the question might be: how much social good/utility does a company like Facebook or LinkedIn really produce and what would be the result of concentrating highly-educated talent there?
appleseed1234 14y ago
I'm curious to know what his ulterior motive is behind this, as I've never been able to take anything he says at face value.
- clicks 14y ago
  Reading the article, it's not just Mark Zuckerberg who's behind this (there's also our Paul Graham, Marissa Myers, Drew Houston, etc. etc.). But if you really want to find an ulterior motive to go off on them, I suppose you could view the immigration reform as being something sinister. Why siphon all the high talent from all other places? I mean, for example, places like India need their smart people more than we need them, they have their own problems they need to solve. W're depriving them of resources to solve problems much more dire than ones we have. Why not just put all their might into putting their energy on properly educating our youth, our unemployed, giving them an environment in which they can excel (more financial help, grants, etc.). What truly would be a noble change to immigration policies would be heightening acceptance of refugee asylum cases -- let the homosexuals, atheists, etc. flee here from places where they're persecuted. The article says they'll push for 'higher standards and accountability' in schools... but you could view that as just a cover (if you're intent on having a cynical interpretation to all things Mr. Zuckerberg).
marze 14y ago
There is little that is more backward and corrupt than the path to citizenship in the US.
PunkRockDoc 14y ago
This could become very interesting. I wonder if Zuckerberg will have the strength of character to keep his own corporate interests removed from his politcal group.
- apalmer 14y ago
  ummmm of course not, that's kinda the whole point of political lobbying.
samstave 14y ago
Can someone explain like I am five: Briefly, What is the current immigration policy? Why is it so broken? WHY/HOW did it get the way it is (who benefits from having it the way it is)?
- untog 14y ago
  In a very brief overview, there are limits to the number of skilled immigrants that can enter the US every year. That number is exhausted extremely quickly, leaving many tech companies (an overwhelming majority of skilled immigrants are tech workers (1)) short-staffed. It is difficult to say who benefits from this arrangement. At least in theory, it's US workers, because they are more in demand. But at the current time, demand outstrips supply enough that the limit could be raised without significant issues. The reason this hasn't happened is largely that "immigration" has become a politically sensitive topic- skilled immigration and "illegal" immigration from Mexico get bunched up into the same topic. Now that there is an appetite to tackle immigration as a whole, we might see a change. (1) I had started an overview of US skilled immigration- I currently have no time to finish it, but it does contain an interactive chart breaking down the immigration categories: http://experimenting.alastair.is/immigration/ http://experimenting.alastair.is/immigration/
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > But at the current time, demand outstrips supply enough that the limit could be raised without significant issues. What happens when the tech industry crashes again, like it does every decade or so? Silicon Valley is tremendously cyclical and always has been. It's not a good idea to predicate our immigration policy on the current boom.
    - redblacktree 14y ago
      "Always has been?" I think your data set is fairly small here.
      - rayiner 14y ago
jellicle 14y ago
Yay, tech companies band together to benefit from importing more foreign workers to the U.S. to work for half of the prevailing wage. I'd support this change to the H1B program: it's now totally unlimited, with this caveat: hiring companies must pay 150% of the prevailing wage to any hired workers. This should be a win-win - companies like Facebook and Yahoo get to hire as many workers as they want, from anywhere in the world. And with multi-billion dollar profit margins, slightly increased salaries should not be a problem. After all, we know that good tech workers make much more for their companies than their salaries cost. Any takers? No? Huh.
- untog 14y ago
  Any citation of "half the prevailing wage"? I've seen this cited time and time again, but with little evidence to back it up. I am an H1B holder and I know a number of others- we are all paid very well.
  - chime 14y ago
    Being paid very well is different from being paid the market wages. Could you get a higher paying job with your credentials in your area doing similar work? /former H1B
    - untog 14y ago
      I have done exactly that a number of times- I am on my third job in the US on my H1B visa, and am absolutely paid market rate for my time.
  - jellicle 14y ago
    http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1BWages http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1BWages http://hothardware.com/News/Study-H1B-Visas-Lower-US-Programmer-Pay/ http://hothardware.com/News/Study-H1B-Visas-Lower-US-Program...
    - untog 14y ago
      A "5-6% drop in wages" isn't "half", though, is it? And the CIS is an organisation that advocates reducing immigration[1]- excuse me if I take their report with a pinch of salt: Applications for 47 percent of H-1B computer programming workers were for wages below even the prevailing wage Note that they switched from "workers" to "applications" on that one. Applications with wages below the prevailing level are usually denied. It's little details like that which ruin any trust I might have in a report that is nearly ten years old. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies
rayiner 14y ago
I find it difficult to take at face value any claims of a "shortage of tech people" when huge numbers of engineering majors at top schools are still going into finance and consulting: http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html. At MIT there are still about 50% more people going into finance and consulting than computer technologies.[1] When Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc, start paying comparable salaries to Goldman and Morgan Stanley, and still can't find enough qualified workers, then I'll believe that there really is a shortage. Until then, I'm going to consider this the latest in a long line of anti-competitive moves to depress engineering wages: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/September/10-at-1076.html http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/September/10-at-1076.html. [1] And it's not because financial firms make more money per worker. Google is at about $1m in revenue per employee, Apple is at about double that. Goldman Sachs is at about $1.25 million.
- scilro 14y ago
  They're concerned about a shortage of cheap tech people.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  An engineer is not worth the same everywhere or to everyone. It's a matter of supply and demand. Goldman and Morgan Stanley pay engineers more than Google et al, because they know it's the only way to convince them to work on their shitty legacy systems rather than on cutting edge technology in Silicon Valley.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Most of the people Goldman, etc, hire from MIT are going into banking or programming trading systems, not doing back office infrastructure work. And if you look at revenues per employee, Google makes more money off its engineers, on average, than Morgan Stanley does off its bankers. And Google makes a lot more money per engineer than McKinsey or BCG/Bain do per consultant, and tons of MIT grads go to those companies instead of going into engineering (though for consulting less for the pay and more for the prospect of upward career mobility). There is certainly a desirability aspect to it--all else being equal an engineer would probably rather be an engineer at Google than a banker at Goldman, but that's besides the point. You can't complain that the supply isn't there when you're paying a lot less money than other organizations with whom you are directly competing for top engineering graduates. If there are a ton of graduates available, but they're just going to do other things, it means you're not paying enough money.
ryanSrich 14y ago
So another strategy to continue underpaying engineers. Sounds novel.
vjeux 14y ago
The problem with H1B is that you have to apply April 1st to have the best chances of getting one. And you actually get it in October. If you want to work in the US being a foreigner you've got to find a job more than 6 months in advance and only at one time every year.
13b9f227ecf0 14y ago
Immigration benefits the economic elite, but is either financially neutral or harmful to the larger population. http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-ac... That's just a financial perspective but there are other costs to consider. As NumbersUSA and others document immigration is harming the environment. Robert Putnam and others have documented how immigration is eroding trust and social capital in American communities.
gyardley 14y ago
The United States should just go the route of Canada, and give permanent residency to individuals with in-demand skills who meet a high standard for linguistic ability, educational achievement, and work experience. If a person's got the skills, there's no reason for the country to mess around with a temporary visa. Once this is done, the United States should bump up the numbers of skilled people it can admit by cutting back on the unskilled people it bizarrely decides to admit every year. The over fifty thousand people given permanent residency each year through the diversity visa lottery have no real qualifications other than being lucky. We could replace each and every one of them with someone with an advanced degree and strong work experience in an in-demand field. Never going to happen, though - not when the government's primary focus is figuring out how to make citizens out of low-skilled economic migrants who've already shown they don't care about following laws.
- GFischer 14y ago
  "The over fifty thousand people given permanent residency each year through the diversity visa lottery have no real qualifications other than being lucky" Maybe someone read too much Ringworld ! :) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teela_Brown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teela_Brown "Her sole qualification was that she was descended from "lucky" ancestors, six generations of whom were born as a result of winning Earth's Birthright Lottery. The Puppeteer saw this as a kind of artificial selection, tending to breed for a psionic power of good luck."
- thomasjames 14y ago
  They do; they are called the E1, E2, E3... visa programs. A lot of the positions these companies are looking to fill frankly just don't require the skills or experience this program demands, because they are looking for young workers in a start-up style work environment.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
pinaceae 14y ago
Speaking as someone who is currently in the process of getting L1 visa status to switch to the US HQ of a startup, I applaud this move. I hear the arguments about well-skilled US workers who could do the same job. (Money is not a factor, I lead a global team, earn normal US wage.) There's actually only a few people who can do my job without extensive ramp up time. It's the global background and experience that is necessary. And still I am moving me and my family to the US. My wife will get a L2, will be not be allowed to work immediately (a work permit can later be applied for). Why? a) The US is the perfect ground to start a software company. Single currency, single language, single legal system. No other country comes close. Your new business can reach a scale here that is unreachable outside of US for the same effort. Start in Germany and France is your first stumbling block. b) Hence the US has the highest density of software jobs. My current job profile exists a handful of times in Europe. c) I am good in my job, my job exists in US, US companies need people like me - why would you step in between? I will pay (high) taxes immediately, won't hop the border fence or form a gang. I won't depress any wages, I am here to make money and live in the Bay Area, which is freaking expensive. What I don't get anyhow - White Americans are in the minority in IT anyhow. My current employer? More than 50% are of Chinese or Indian decent. And famous founders? A lot of Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. The world comes to the Bay to build software. Why not make this easier?
- TheCoelacanth 14y ago
  I don't have a problem with allowing skilled immigrants into the US. I have a huge problem with the overly favorable terms that employers get with H-1B workers. I think that once a worker has been allowed in they should be allowed to transfer jobs without having to find a new sponsor. If their skills are valuable enough to let them in, the skills should be valuable enough to let them stay.
- ktsmith 14y ago
  The L1 works the way it's supposed to and part of the reason there are restrictions on spouses/children working has to do with how the L1 is issued. For example I've got a client that brings L1s (blanket L1) in at a rate of 5-10 a month. These workers are here from anywhere between 10 days and several years. The US government doesn't want to issue an EAD card to the spouse of someone that's not going to be here for very long. The biggest problem with the immigration system that I have has to do with students going into the H1-B pool after graduation. We should either hand anyone that graduates with a STEM degree from a US university permanent residence upon graduation or make a new class of H visa that doesn't count against the cap. I see companies cheating but following the letter of the law all the time when they have an F1 student intern that is about to graduate and they want to keep on so they sponsor an H1 for them. This has nothing to do with wages, just the technicalities and paper work. We should be trying desperately to keep these people in the US, not making it luck of the draw if they get an H1. Any wage depression issues could be resolved if H1-B workers had to work for their employers directly and not as consultants for other employers. edit: removed bit about L1 and permanent residence, the L1 is dual intent.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
avichal 14y ago
I'm not sure why there is so much talk about ulterior motives on this one. In this case, I think everyone's incentives are aligned. Successful tech companies like Google and Facebook hold their engineers in the highest esteem and pay very generously for them (far above prevailing wage). The best workers want to work at these companies. Our economy, tax base, and society needs these people for the long term. Stapling a Green Card to anyone that gets a phd from a top 25 US university, giving an automatic h1b to anyone who can raise $1 million in funding, making companies pay 2x prevailing wage to guarantee an h1b...these are all reasonable ideas. And I think discussing the merits of different proposals and how to make sure top tech talent stays in the US is where our energy should go.
mwnz 14y ago
I've read a lot of the comments here and thought I would chime in as a current H1B holder. I have two degrees, and received many concrete offers before moving to the U.S. However, I still found the process incredibly difficult. I have lived in many countries around the world, but this has been the least tolerant of highly skilled migrants. Am I underpaid? No, I am paid market rate. Is there a demand for my skills? An emphatic yes. Do I feel the visa system is broken? Hell yes. It is not desirable to live in the U.S on an H1B. My wife, is not allowed to work here, despite being qualified and experienced. This broken rule alone is making us consider leaving. Will the void be filled by a U.S citizen? Unlikely - demand is far exceeding supply here. Contrast this with competitors to the U.S (European countries, Australia etc), where immigration policy is far more accepting of highly skilled migrants. There, I did not even have to be married for my partner of 7 years to work. I was given tax breaks, as I would likely not see the benefits of a percentage of the tax I contributed. My advice to any highly skilled foreigner considering moving here with the current immigration policy would be - don't. Move to Europe, Australia, Canada or New Zealand instead (just picking countries I am familiar with there).
- mwnz 14y ago
  My bad - I meant countries and continents. One further note: While some companies may abuse the system and bring over workers so that the underpay them, the H1B permits transfer to other companies, so they are free to leave.

39 points by Fletch137 14y ago

thomasjames 14y ago

You'd think these companies all had a vested interest in underpaying a bunch of H-1B visa holders or something...

niggler 14y ago
"underpaying a bunch of H-1B visa holders or something" That's true when they don't have the money. Now that they do, increasing the wage makes it harder for startups to hire qualified people.
untog 14y ago
Contrary to common belief (common meme?) a lot of H1B employees are not underpaid. Particularly at large companies like Facebook and Google. Weird consulting shops in New Jersey, on the other hand...
- thomasjames 14y ago
  I just see this as somehow linking the manufactured labor shortage tech companies have been trying to whine about for years with the very real problem of illegal immigration and the social consequences that brings... consequences which I do not think anyone on that list of people cares about. They would have better luck creating this need out of no where when the country was closer to full employment, but the US is a long, long ways off from that.
  - untog 14y ago
    How do you figure that the labour shortage in tech is manufactured? In any case, everyone has been fighting to separate skilled immigration from ilegal immigration- them being combined is what has held back reform. There's broad political agreement that skilled immigration needs reform, but until recently no politician has wanted to touch it for fear of being "soft on illegals".
    - thomasjames 14y ago
      After the dot-com bubble many people were not hired again. We are not even five years out from the greatest recession in many decades. Many of these people have fundamental technical skills. They might know more perl than most and not have much love for ruby hipsters, but they understand the permanent aspects of programming and related disciplines, like the logic behind it. I think a lot of this comes down to Silicon Valley's ageism problem (you know the one no one here ever talks about). There are many technical workers who people think are outdated, despite being responsible for the first P.C. and later internet revolution. For the record, I am 24, and such things do not affect me. But I think opinion here might be skewed on an age basis.
  - jisaacstone 14y ago
    Illegal immigration is such a hot-button issue in the us that is taints all immigration discussions. It makes me sad and frustrated, but people cannot seem to understand the numerous important immigration issues which have nothing to do with Mexicans jumping over fences. Personally I think the legal immigration nonsense is much more important, but the masses and the media disagree.
  - 13b9f227ecf0 14y ago
    I'm not sure what ties these people to the USA. They could set up shop in any of a dozen places and import whoever they want. They have narrow elitist interests and don't seem to care about the American society at large. If they did they wouldn't be so tone deaf on an issue like mass immigration, which an overwhelming majority of the population deeply opposes.
- Uhhrrr 14y ago
  As someone who worked at a weird consulting shop in Fremont, I can affirm that underpaid H1B employees exist.
- aznjons 14y ago
  Even if H1B employees are not underpaid, artificially increasing the supply of highly-demanded technical talent prevents tech giants from needing to raise compensation across the board. Artificially seems to be a justifiable characterization for a number of reasons. 1. At least intuitively, raising wages should attract educated/intellectually capable people from other industries domestically. The corporations have already been reprimanded by the DoJ for instituting anti-competitive practices regarding poaching. 2. Attracting technical talent from other countries would seem to decrease the supply of talent in those places, which may have relatively less resources than the U.S. to train and retain technically skilled workers; what would be the consequences in the source countries? 3. Finally, attracting highly educated workers to a specific industry and specific corporations with hefty resources concentrates a relatively/currently inelastic supply of skilled workers. More explicitly stated, the question might be: how much social good/utility does a company like Facebook or LinkedIn really produce and what would be the result of concentrating highly-educated talent there?

appleseed1234 14y ago

I'm curious to know what his ulterior motive is behind this, as I've never been able to take anything he says at face value.

clicks 14y ago
Reading the article, it's not just Mark Zuckerberg who's behind this (there's also our Paul Graham, Marissa Myers, Drew Houston, etc. etc.). But if you really want to find an ulterior motive to go off on them, I suppose you could view the immigration reform as being something sinister. Why siphon all the high talent from all other places? I mean, for example, places like India need their smart people more than we need them, they have their own problems they need to solve. W're depriving them of resources to solve problems much more dire than ones we have. Why not just put all their might into putting their energy on properly educating our youth, our unemployed, giving them an environment in which they can excel (more financial help, grants, etc.). What truly would be a noble change to immigration policies would be heightening acceptance of refugee asylum cases -- let the homosexuals, atheists, etc. flee here from places where they're persecuted. The article says they'll push for 'higher standards and accountability' in schools... but you could view that as just a cover (if you're intent on having a cynical interpretation to all things Mr. Zuckerberg).

marze 14y ago

There is little that is more backward and corrupt than the path to citizenship in the US.

PunkRockDoc 14y ago

This could become very interesting. I wonder if Zuckerberg will have the strength of character to keep his own corporate interests removed from his politcal group.

apalmer 14y ago
ummmm of course not, that's kinda the whole point of political lobbying.

samstave 14y ago

Can someone explain like I am five: Briefly, What is the current immigration policy? Why is it so broken? WHY/HOW did it get the way it is (who benefits from having it the way it is)?

untog 14y ago
In a very brief overview, there are limits to the number of skilled immigrants that can enter the US every year. That number is exhausted extremely quickly, leaving many tech companies (an overwhelming majority of skilled immigrants are tech workers (1)) short-staffed. It is difficult to say who benefits from this arrangement. At least in theory, it's US workers, because they are more in demand. But at the current time, demand outstrips supply enough that the limit could be raised without significant issues. The reason this hasn't happened is largely that "immigration" has become a politically sensitive topic- skilled immigration and "illegal" immigration from Mexico get bunched up into the same topic. Now that there is an appetite to tackle immigration as a whole, we might see a change. (1) I had started an overview of US skilled immigration- I currently have no time to finish it, but it does contain an interactive chart breaking down the immigration categories: http://experimenting.alastair.is/immigration/ http://experimenting.alastair.is/immigration/
- rayiner 14y ago
  > But at the current time, demand outstrips supply enough that the limit could be raised without significant issues. What happens when the tech industry crashes again, like it does every decade or so? Silicon Valley is tremendously cyclical and always has been. It's not a good idea to predicate our immigration policy on the current boom.
  - redblacktree 14y ago
    "Always has been?" I think your data set is fairly small here.
    - rayiner 14y ago

jellicle 14y ago

Yay, tech companies band together to benefit from importing more foreign workers to the U.S. to work for half of the prevailing wage. I'd support this change to the H1B program: it's now totally unlimited, with this caveat: hiring companies must pay 150% of the prevailing wage to any hired workers. This should be a win-win - companies like Facebook and Yahoo get to hire as many workers as they want, from anywhere in the world. And with multi-billion dollar profit margins, slightly increased salaries should not be a problem. After all, we know that good tech workers make much more for their companies than their salaries cost. Any takers? No? Huh.

untog 14y ago
Any citation of "half the prevailing wage"? I've seen this cited time and time again, but with little evidence to back it up. I am an H1B holder and I know a number of others- we are all paid very well.
- chime 14y ago
  Being paid very well is different from being paid the market wages. Could you get a higher paying job with your credentials in your area doing similar work? /former H1B
  - untog 14y ago
    I have done exactly that a number of times- I am on my third job in the US on my H1B visa, and am absolutely paid market rate for my time.
- jellicle 14y ago
  http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1BWages http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1BWages http://hothardware.com/News/Study-H1B-Visas-Lower-US-Programmer-Pay/ http://hothardware.com/News/Study-H1B-Visas-Lower-US-Program...
  - untog 14y ago
    A "5-6% drop in wages" isn't "half", though, is it? And the CIS is an organisation that advocates reducing immigration[1]- excuse me if I take their report with a pinch of salt: Applications for 47 percent of H-1B computer programming workers were for wages below even the prevailing wage Note that they switched from "workers" to "applications" on that one. Applications with wages below the prevailing level are usually denied. It's little details like that which ruin any trust I might have in a report that is nearly ten years old. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies

rayiner 14y ago

I find it difficult to take at face value any claims of a "shortage of tech people" when huge numbers of engineering majors at top schools are still going into finance and consulting: http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html. At MIT there are still about 50% more people going into finance and consulting than computer technologies.[1] When Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc, start paying comparable salaries to Goldman and Morgan Stanley, and still can't find enough qualified workers, then I'll believe that there really is a shortage. Until then, I'm going to consider this the latest in a long line of anti-competitive moves to depress engineering wages: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/September/10-at-1076.html http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/September/10-at-1076.html. [1] And it's not because financial firms make more money per worker. Google is at about $1m in revenue per employee, Apple is at about double that. Goldman Sachs is at about $1.25 million.

scilro 14y ago
They're concerned about a shortage of cheap tech people.
enraged_camel 14y ago
An engineer is not worth the same everywhere or to everyone. It's a matter of supply and demand. Goldman and Morgan Stanley pay engineers more than Google et al, because they know it's the only way to convince them to work on their shitty legacy systems rather than on cutting edge technology in Silicon Valley.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Most of the people Goldman, etc, hire from MIT are going into banking or programming trading systems, not doing back office infrastructure work. And if you look at revenues per employee, Google makes more money off its engineers, on average, than Morgan Stanley does off its bankers. And Google makes a lot more money per engineer than McKinsey or BCG/Bain do per consultant, and tons of MIT grads go to those companies instead of going into engineering (though for consulting less for the pay and more for the prospect of upward career mobility). There is certainly a desirability aspect to it--all else being equal an engineer would probably rather be an engineer at Google than a banker at Goldman, but that's besides the point. You can't complain that the supply isn't there when you're paying a lot less money than other organizations with whom you are directly competing for top engineering graduates. If there are a ton of graduates available, but they're just going to do other things, it means you're not paying enough money.

ryanSrich 14y ago

So another strategy to continue underpaying engineers. Sounds novel.

vjeux 14y ago

The problem with H1B is that you have to apply April 1st to have the best chances of getting one. And you actually get it in October. If you want to work in the US being a foreigner you've got to find a job more than 6 months in advance and only at one time every year.

13b9f227ecf0 14y ago

Immigration benefits the economic elite, but is either financially neutral or harmful to the larger population. http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-ac... That's just a financial perspective but there are other costs to consider. As NumbersUSA and others document immigration is harming the environment. Robert Putnam and others have documented how immigration is eroding trust and social capital in American communities.

gyardley 14y ago

The United States should just go the route of Canada, and give permanent residency to individuals with in-demand skills who meet a high standard for linguistic ability, educational achievement, and work experience. If a person's got the skills, there's no reason for the country to mess around with a temporary visa. Once this is done, the United States should bump up the numbers of skilled people it can admit by cutting back on the unskilled people it bizarrely decides to admit every year. The over fifty thousand people given permanent residency each year through the diversity visa lottery have no real qualifications other than being lucky. We could replace each and every one of them with someone with an advanced degree and strong work experience in an in-demand field. Never going to happen, though - not when the government's primary focus is figuring out how to make citizens out of low-skilled economic migrants who've already shown they don't care about following laws.

GFischer 14y ago
"The over fifty thousand people given permanent residency each year through the diversity visa lottery have no real qualifications other than being lucky" Maybe someone read too much Ringworld ! :) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teela_Brown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teela_Brown "Her sole qualification was that she was descended from "lucky" ancestors, six generations of whom were born as a result of winning Earth's Birthright Lottery. The Puppeteer saw this as a kind of artificial selection, tending to breed for a psionic power of good luck."
thomasjames 14y ago
They do; they are called the E1, E2, E3... visa programs. A lot of the positions these companies are looking to fill frankly just don't require the skills or experience this program demands, because they are looking for young workers in a start-up style work environment.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

pinaceae 14y ago

Speaking as someone who is currently in the process of getting L1 visa status to switch to the US HQ of a startup, I applaud this move. I hear the arguments about well-skilled US workers who could do the same job. (Money is not a factor, I lead a global team, earn normal US wage.) There's actually only a few people who can do my job without extensive ramp up time. It's the global background and experience that is necessary. And still I am moving me and my family to the US. My wife will get a L2, will be not be allowed to work immediately (a work permit can later be applied for). Why? a) The US is the perfect ground to start a software company. Single currency, single language, single legal system. No other country comes close. Your new business can reach a scale here that is unreachable outside of US for the same effort. Start in Germany and France is your first stumbling block. b) Hence the US has the highest density of software jobs. My current job profile exists a handful of times in Europe. c) I am good in my job, my job exists in US, US companies need people like me - why would you step in between? I will pay (high) taxes immediately, won't hop the border fence or form a gang. I won't depress any wages, I am here to make money and live in the Bay Area, which is freaking expensive. What I don't get anyhow - White Americans are in the minority in IT anyhow. My current employer? More than 50% are of Chinese or Indian decent. And famous founders? A lot of Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. The world comes to the Bay to build software. Why not make this easier?

TheCoelacanth 14y ago
I don't have a problem with allowing skilled immigrants into the US. I have a huge problem with the overly favorable terms that employers get with H-1B workers. I think that once a worker has been allowed in they should be allowed to transfer jobs without having to find a new sponsor. If their skills are valuable enough to let them in, the skills should be valuable enough to let them stay.
ktsmith 14y ago
The L1 works the way it's supposed to and part of the reason there are restrictions on spouses/children working has to do with how the L1 is issued. For example I've got a client that brings L1s (blanket L1) in at a rate of 5-10 a month. These workers are here from anywhere between 10 days and several years. The US government doesn't want to issue an EAD card to the spouse of someone that's not going to be here for very long. The biggest problem with the immigration system that I have has to do with students going into the H1-B pool after graduation. We should either hand anyone that graduates with a STEM degree from a US university permanent residence upon graduation or make a new class of H visa that doesn't count against the cap. I see companies cheating but following the letter of the law all the time when they have an F1 student intern that is about to graduate and they want to keep on so they sponsor an H1 for them. This has nothing to do with wages, just the technicalities and paper work. We should be trying desperately to keep these people in the US, not making it luck of the draw if they get an H1. Any wage depression issues could be resolved if H1-B workers had to work for their employers directly and not as consultants for other employers. edit: removed bit about L1 and permanent residence, the L1 is dual intent.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

avichal 14y ago

I'm not sure why there is so much talk about ulterior motives on this one. In this case, I think everyone's incentives are aligned. Successful tech companies like Google and Facebook hold their engineers in the highest esteem and pay very generously for them (far above prevailing wage). The best workers want to work at these companies. Our economy, tax base, and society needs these people for the long term. Stapling a Green Card to anyone that gets a phd from a top 25 US university, giving an automatic h1b to anyone who can raise $1 million in funding, making companies pay 2x prevailing wage to guarantee an h1b...these are all reasonable ideas. And I think discussing the merits of different proposals and how to make sure top tech talent stays in the US is where our energy should go.

mwnz 14y ago

I've read a lot of the comments here and thought I would chime in as a current H1B holder. I have two degrees, and received many concrete offers before moving to the U.S. However, I still found the process incredibly difficult. I have lived in many countries around the world, but this has been the least tolerant of highly skilled migrants. Am I underpaid? No, I am paid market rate. Is there a demand for my skills? An emphatic yes. Do I feel the visa system is broken? Hell yes. It is not desirable to live in the U.S on an H1B. My wife, is not allowed to work here, despite being qualified and experienced. This broken rule alone is making us consider leaving. Will the void be filled by a U.S citizen? Unlikely - demand is far exceeding supply here. Contrast this with competitors to the U.S (European countries, Australia etc), where immigration policy is far more accepting of highly skilled migrants. There, I did not even have to be married for my partner of 7 years to work. I was given tax breaks, as I would likely not see the benefits of a percentage of the tax I contributed. My advice to any highly skilled foreigner considering moving here with the current immigration policy would be - don't. Move to Europe, Australia, Canada or New Zealand instead (just picking countries I am familiar with there).

mwnz 14y ago
My bad - I meant countries and continents. One further note: While some companies may abuse the system and bring over workers so that the underpay them, the H1B permits transfer to other companies, so they are free to leave.