[tomjen3]

Hopefully that won't pass.

If you have to get 250k under that law (versus 500k-million under the already existing immigration law) then it isn't going to help startups at all, the only thing it is going to do is to prevent a real startup visa law from ever being passed.

A real startup law would not put capital requirements on the company but would require its founders to be able to live of the income and to either hire people or grow a certain amount each year, which some checks to prevent them from being consultants.

[cletus]

I think you misunderstand current law.

Current law allows for investment-based immigration, meaning that if you have a certain amount of money to invest in a business you can be granted a conditional green card based on the idea that you'll be creating jobs.

The startup visa would allow foreign entrepreneurs to come to the US if they could secure funding from legitimate angels and VCs.

The first situation allows foreign nationals with foreign money to establish businesses (and residency) in the US. The second allows US residents to establish businesses with foreign entrepreneurs, which is almost the exact opposite of the first.

[chesser]

Let's say someone comes over to start a start-up.

Who exactly are they going to hire?

The competition is already super tough for getting good help. The talent pool is limited, so this seems rather zero-sum. The kind of people you want already have jobs, so this isn't creating any.

And startups are uncertain enough without adding that the CEO is here on a temporary visa. It's going to be even tougher to hire people.

I can see it as a nice thing to do on an individual level (so people with dreams who just weren't born here get a better shot at them), but is there a compelling case outside of that?

The majority of startups and small businesses are completely expendable and interchangeable as far as society is concerned; "Most small businesses exist to provide the owner's family with an upper-middle-class lifestyle."

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dgdgw/single_vs...

I know it's great for an individual to have a successful Facebook game, but why should society care?