[ishan_dikshit]

I think everyone here is ignoring a very important statistic within the article: "data shows that 25 percent of high tech companies founded between 1995 and 2005 have at least one immigrant founder". Would you rather have these companies be based out of Asia entirely?

Also see: https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-fou...

I was recently speaking with Demis Hassabis and he recommended looking for startup funding in California but continuing to work out of London. More and more companies are gravitating towards this general template (not London specifically). Would you rather have some low level Stack Developer working at Airbnb on an H1B build the next Billion dollar startup in the Bay Area or out of Bangalore?

Yes, hiring someone with an H1B might cost a company 10k less per annum. But what would it cost America to not have these foreign workers want to work in California altogether? Besides, it isn't fair to build such an impressive hotbed of thought and progress and then try and wall others out of it.

[kamaal]

>>Would you rather have these companies be based out of Asia entirely?

>>Would you rather have some low level Stack Developer working at Airbnb on an H1B build the next Billion dollar startup in the Bay Area or out of Bangalore?

As somebody who stays in Bangalore, I can tell you this is already the case and has been for a few years now.

Back then when I started my career there was a mad rush to move to US in most young people. Today coupled with a impossibly long green card wait, and uncertainties associated with a job on a Visa for most smart people moving to US isn't even an option. I know a lot of smart people for whom moving to US isn't even in their list of priorities.

In the past decade start up ecosystem here has become very good. Starting companies is no longer social or economic taboo in India/Bangalore today.

US people think outsourcing was bad for them? Imagine competing with start ups and their funding, which are operating at 1/10th the budget of any city in US.

[nonamechicken]

I actually was hoping Trump would kick out all Indians from US ever since I heard of the story of Snapdeal founder (he didn't get h1b, came back and started a company in India). Even if a few who come back starts their companies, it is good for Indians in every way. I look forward to the day we Indians can stop relying on other nations for their jobs.

[bluthru]

>Would you rather have these companies be based out of Asia entirely?

Well I want to see the entire world become prosperous instead of wealth continuing to concentrate and stratify at a global scale, so yes.

[anonemouse145]

In my experience this is not always a positive. I've seen several cases where a foreign born representative is offloading people from (country of origin) because dumb managers still think it's the height of the offshoring era and foreign = cheaper. Relatives and friends and anybody the rep knows from the old country get first in line, and they just lie or exaggerate experience. If they even need to.

I've watched those foreign people get hired even though they walked into the interview without even Googling the product or development environment specified in the ad. Not that this is new or exclusive, mind you.

Nevermind that nobody thought about onboarding these people, there's no documentation, and the resulting product takes a sharp nosedive as work is handed over. These foreign people were promised cheap, and that keeps the investors happy.

This is no slightly against those workers. I've taught these workers and one guy had his head in his hands saying, "Oh my God, the legal liability we're being exposed to here" upon learning of deep design flaws that cheaper labor was somehow going to magically fix.

More workers is not necessarily better- in any sense. It's just more workers. In a capitalist system, that's not necessarily good for anybody except management.

[s73ver]

I would also say that it isn't quite fair to try and concentrate all of the thought and progress in one small area. Not fair to the rest of the world, and not fair to the area which has to suffer increased cost of living because of it.

Note: This post is in no way, shape, or form arguing against immigration. Immigration is great. I'm more saying that we should try and spread around the SV effect, so that more places can prosper, and one place isn't strained so much.