[idiopathic]

Agreed, this was my same thinking when I was in the USA until 2008. Sure, my employer and my wife's both offered to get us a green card, but why wait? I had applied to YC earlier that year with an idea for a start-up that was based on my living in DC and was turned down. I went back to the UK, applied with a different idea that was more appropriate to the UK / Europe. That got funded by Seedcamp, and off we went.

I have no doubt that the USA / SV is a great place to start a company, but why waste your life trying to satisfy government bureaucrats that you should be allowed in when there are plenty of other places that want you?

If you are European, you can move to any of the hubs like London or Berlin. They might not be as brilliant as SV, but they have their own advantages, and the key for an entrepreneur is to get down and make use of these advantages. Folks in the Persian Gulf (I am from Bahrain) can move to any of the hubs there like Dubai or Bahrain, and there are plenty of gaps in the market that an entrepreneur can fill by starting a company. And of course the BRIC countries have huge growth for their own nationals to ride.

So why go through the headaches of government immigration?

(PS I am really sorry for entrepreneur that this story describes. I just hope fewer people have to go through that fate.)