[allengeorge]

There's a lot of caveats to that statement.

Within the Bay Area itself there's plenty of segregation: anecdotally, I noticed relatively few Indians living in Palo Alto and working at startups; most live in MV/Sunnyvale/Fremont and worked in larger companies like Cisco and Oracle. I'm not making the claim that this segregation is externally-driven, it's just that there "are people all over the world" doesn't tell the full story. Having worked in both Toronto and New York, both cities have noticeably more diverse workplaces and neighbourhoods.

That said, while in the Bay Area I never felt my skills as an engineer were questioned because of my background. I really appreciated that.

note: edited for grammar

[golergka]

May be because it's much harder for startups to sponsor visas, and they don't have oversea offices to transfer people from?

[hueving]

Yes, this is the main reason. A startup is a much larger gamble for someone on a visa.

[hibikir]

Even working directly for a large company is a gamble for someone with a visa. It's one of the little secrets of H1Bs, Green Cards and consulting: Go though a consulting firm, and you get hit by less incidental layoffs (since you are just capex), and even if you are not renewed, the consulting firm will just keep you on the roster (although probably unpaid), while they hand you another gig. Compared to the ticking bomb caused by a layoff, it makes those places attractive from a safety perspective.

This is not really a valley thing either: Here in the midwest, we have companies that are 50+% indian consultants, and companies that are 95% white, with very little in between, and it's all about whether H1Bs work there, directly or consulting.

[fennecfoxen]

I'd think it runs the other way: a visa is a much larger gamble for someone running a startup.

[allengeorge]

Both are true.

My former company (AeroFS) was one of the few I'm aware of that was willing to hire good talent even if it required a visa.

Also, I think that asking someone from India (taking that country as an example) to move to the US for less than market wage to toss the dice on a startup is... a challenge. That startup is less marketable on their resume than BigCorp if they want to return to India and get hired by another company or join an outsourcing company.

[dengnan]

I think the segregation you were talking about might be attribute to the first generation of immigrants. NYC and many other places have a longer tradition of accepting people from other contries. Many "people in color" in those cities have been there for generations. But in SV, many tech engineers are not born and raised in America. They tend to hangout within their own group for obvious reasons. Compared with NYC, SV has just started to welcome people from other countries.