6 ms·

Let this new office get serious about founder's visa and immigration issues, and then we'll see if there's any truth to all the startup love.

tptacek 17y ago
Why is that? There appears to be nothing resembling unanimous support for "founders visa" among entrepreneurs.
- arithmetic 17y ago
  I'm a little suprised by your reply - I haven't seen an entrepreneur say "We don't really want a founders visa" either. We've seen several threads on news.ycombinator on the need for a "founder's visa" and immigration reform. The current H1 visa system is cearly busted. If there is going to be a new office set up for early-stage entrepreneurs, this is certainly one of the important tasks at hand for the federal office.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    The top-ranked comment on the most recent HN thread on Founders Visas argues against them: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815457 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815457 Eyeballing the whole thread, it looks like support ran 50/50. Note that, for instance, arguing for a "more Canadian-style immigration policy" is not the same thing as supporting the Founders Visa proposal. We are allowed to believe simultaneously that H1-B is busted and the Founders Visa is a bad idea. Wait, no, here's a more recent thread about Founders Visas. It's got 89 votes. The top comment opposes founders visas: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832363 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832363 It refers to the HN thread on Graham's original post about Founders Visas. 196 votes on that post. Again, the top comment opposes the Visa: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908
    - gojomo 17y ago
      I see many of these comments as criticisms of superficial implementation details, that don't necessarily indicate opposition to all variants of the Founders Visa idea. Comment votes, top-comments or even prevalence of critical comments are not reliable indicators of net agreement/disagreement. Threads have lots of factors that cause criticism and disagreement to be over-represented, or cause quibbles to be misinterpreted as opposition. I myself would criticize the 'investors panel' mechanism because I support the overall gist of any policy to increase founder immigration. Sure, I understand bokonist's critique and I'd prefer saner non-political mechanisms for boosting beneficial immigration. But given that immigration policy will continue to be a bureaucratic mess -- there's no 'grand fix' proposal on the table as an alternative -- even a flawed program could be worthwhile. All the existing 'doors' through which immigrants enter are politically-flawed; why not have one more door, also admittedly flawed, through which a few more valuable immigrants might enter?
  - jhancock 17y ago
    Most agree that things like the H1-B program are broken. We have tons of data over many years to support this. The assertion that creating a founders visa enables more successful startups that in turn makes the economy grow (preferably sustainable growth) has not been proven at all. Its a very nice assertion, and I'd like to buy into it, but I have seen no meaningful data in support.
- pg 17y ago
  There's pretty near unanimous support among people who care about the issue at all. Startups that have immigration problems mostly would like such an option. And to those that don't, what difference would it make if another few thousand (mostly smart) immigrants were allowed to come to the US?
  - tptacek 17y ago
    I'm with bokonist on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 Particularly this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557298 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557298 bokonist's comments on this thread were incredibly good. I get the sense that I'm nowhere near him on the political spectrum, but I couldn't stop reading what he had to say about this and found him very persuasive.
    - pg 17y ago
      It's true that if the government implemented such a program, they'd probably do a bad job. But they couldn't do worse than they're doing now, which is to turn people away at the borders. If the strongest argument you can make against a proposed government policy is one that you could make against any government policy, then it's pretty good, as proposals for government policies go. I agree that by default the government does things badly, and that the government ought therefore to do as little as possible. But immigration policy is an area where they're already acting, and going to continue to act. So it's reasonable to propose ways to act more intelligently.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        bokonist even concedes that your proposal could be beneficial in the short term. It's what it does in the medium-long term that concerns him. So, I think the Founders Visa is bad policy. You asked, there's my response. That aside, I'm with sachinag. This issue is a red herring. If we want to foster startups in the US, we should start by addressing barriers that face US citizens: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832480 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832480

tptacek 17y ago

Why is that? There appears to be nothing resembling unanimous support for "founders visa" among entrepreneurs.

arithmetic 17y ago
I'm a little suprised by your reply - I haven't seen an entrepreneur say "We don't really want a founders visa" either. We've seen several threads on news.ycombinator on the need for a "founder's visa" and immigration reform. The current H1 visa system is cearly busted. If there is going to be a new office set up for early-stage entrepreneurs, this is certainly one of the important tasks at hand for the federal office.
- tptacek 17y ago
  The top-ranked comment on the most recent HN thread on Founders Visas argues against them: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815457 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815457 Eyeballing the whole thread, it looks like support ran 50/50. Note that, for instance, arguing for a "more Canadian-style immigration policy" is not the same thing as supporting the Founders Visa proposal. We are allowed to believe simultaneously that H1-B is busted and the Founders Visa is a bad idea. Wait, no, here's a more recent thread about Founders Visas. It's got 89 votes. The top comment opposes founders visas: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832363 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832363 It refers to the HN thread on Graham's original post about Founders Visas. 196 votes on that post. Again, the top comment opposes the Visa: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908
  - gojomo 17y ago
    I see many of these comments as criticisms of superficial implementation details, that don't necessarily indicate opposition to all variants of the Founders Visa idea. Comment votes, top-comments or even prevalence of critical comments are not reliable indicators of net agreement/disagreement. Threads have lots of factors that cause criticism and disagreement to be over-represented, or cause quibbles to be misinterpreted as opposition. I myself would criticize the 'investors panel' mechanism because I support the overall gist of any policy to increase founder immigration. Sure, I understand bokonist's critique and I'd prefer saner non-political mechanisms for boosting beneficial immigration. But given that immigration policy will continue to be a bureaucratic mess -- there's no 'grand fix' proposal on the table as an alternative -- even a flawed program could be worthwhile. All the existing 'doors' through which immigrants enter are politically-flawed; why not have one more door, also admittedly flawed, through which a few more valuable immigrants might enter?
- jhancock 17y ago
  Most agree that things like the H1-B program are broken. We have tons of data over many years to support this. The assertion that creating a founders visa enables more successful startups that in turn makes the economy grow (preferably sustainable growth) has not been proven at all. Its a very nice assertion, and I'd like to buy into it, but I have seen no meaningful data in support.
pg 17y ago
There's pretty near unanimous support among people who care about the issue at all. Startups that have immigration problems mostly would like such an option. And to those that don't, what difference would it make if another few thousand (mostly smart) immigrants were allowed to come to the US?
- tptacek 17y ago
  I'm with bokonist on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 Particularly this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557298 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=557298 bokonist's comments on this thread were incredibly good. I get the sense that I'm nowhere near him on the political spectrum, but I couldn't stop reading what he had to say about this and found him very persuasive.
  - pg 17y ago
    It's true that if the government implemented such a program, they'd probably do a bad job. But they couldn't do worse than they're doing now, which is to turn people away at the borders. If the strongest argument you can make against a proposed government policy is one that you could make against any government policy, then it's pretty good, as proposals for government policies go. I agree that by default the government does things badly, and that the government ought therefore to do as little as possible. But immigration policy is an area where they're already acting, and going to continue to act. So it's reasonable to propose ways to act more intelligently.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      bokonist even concedes that your proposal could be beneficial in the short term. It's what it does in the medium-long term that concerns him. So, I think the Founders Visa is bad policy. You asked, there's my response. That aside, I'm with sachinag. This issue is a red herring. If we want to foster startups in the US, we should start by addressing barriers that face US citizens: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832480 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832480