[kerpal]

This is so absolutely fundamental to US strategic advantage.

A huge reason we have so many unicorns is because doing business and scaling in the US is easier than EU or other places.

A huge part of why the Manhattan Project was successful was also because of substantial brain drain from Europe. I think Scott Galloway wrote about this or may have popularized it.

[SV_BubbleTime]

If you're only talking about the exceptional sure. But when Microsoft fires x and applies for ~x H1Bs the same day... That doesn't seem like what you're talking about at all.

If an employee is exceptional and a skilled unicorn wrangler... 100K is nothing.

[bialpio]

Not sure if it applies to H-1B but if a company does mass layoffs, it automatically makes it so that the PERM applications (required for green card, which you need to keep the employee past the visa validity period + extensions; up to 7 years iirc) will be automatically rejected for some time. So it screws over your existing H-1B holders, making your company way less attractive.

Source: I came to the US on H-1B in 2012. I may be misremembering which stage of the process the mass layoffs affect.

[reverius42]

Part of the problem is you don't know ahead of time (certainly not with 100% certainty) who's going to be an exceptional unicorn wrangler, and who's just going to be a pretty good engineer, unless they already have an incredible track record elsewhere. This will filter out a lot of possible future unicorn wranglers.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Geez, maybe there shouldn’t be tens of thousands of hires over Americans then?

Sorry, it’s just that maybe a LOT of you aren’t understanding the motivation here?

[kevin_thibedeau]

A significant number of them were fleeing persecution. General rule: don't be inhospitable to your smart people or they will find greener pastures.

[christkv]

I hardly think world famous physicists are comparable to mediocre crud app programmers on a h1b.

[herbst]

I've read brain drain in this thread multiple times. I might agree this happened back then, but I don't know what people mean by it right now. Where is the term coming from suddenly and why is it used to uncritical?

[reverius42]

"Where is the term coming from suddenly"

I don't think it's new, I've been hearing it my whole life

"and why is it used to uncritical?"

I ... can't figure out what this means.

[herbst]

In this thread it's thrown around as if everyone is referring to something specific related to immigration.

Edit:// checked US news. I can see what you all refer to now. To explain media seems to assume the US is having a "brain drain" because of fleeing scientists, some other countries make fun of it and call it their "brain gain"

[crummy]

In New Zealand the brain drain discussion has been going on for decades. We are remote, have a limited economy, wages are low. As a result, many smart kids graduate from university, go travel overseas (particularly Australia and the UK), find jobs with better wages, and never come home. It's referred to in the media as the brain drain.

[skylurk]

Nearly every country besides the USA has been experiencing "brain drain" to the USA since at least the end of WW2, and discussing it for just as long.

[herbst]

In from central Europe and that concept is new to me, as in a existing problem after ww2.

[skylurk]

Might be just a language thing then.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_Eastern_...