[gary_0]

"Killing the golden goose" is the phrase that has come to mind repeatedly in the past few years. As someone living in a country that has been brain-draining into the US for decades, I'm quite perplexed at all this. It looks like the next Andrej Karpathy (born in Czechoslovakia, educated in Canada) will be taking their talents somewhere besides the US in the future.

Maybe they think they can just cherry-pick the geniuses and leave "the rest" but that's not how it works; skilled experts don't just suddenly appear out of the vacuum, you need a pipeline with a wide mouth. It wasn't perfect but the US had the world's best genius pipeline, and it has already been largely torn down.

[TMWNN]

> It looks like the next Andrej Karpathy (born in Czechoslovakia, educated in Canada) will be taking their talents somewhere besides the US in the future.

Karpathy, with a Stanford PhD, would not have received or needed an H-1B.

This, like the new $100K fee, is about shutting down the Indian body shops that consume the vast majority of "tech" H-1Bs.

[SpicyLemonZest]

There's so many Americans who have this intuition you're expressing, that there must be some good immigration system for responsible people who obviously ought to be allowed to stay in the country. The reason there isn't is that immigration reform deals have been sabotaged for decades by the people who are feeding you this disinformation. To emphasize, the person who told you this information knew it was false, lied to you about it in order to serve their political goals, and you must not trust anything they tell you going forwards.

The actual law, dictated by the F-1 visa program allowing foreign studies, is that a foreign Stanford PhD must permanently depart the United States within 60 days after graduation. There's a one-time extension available under the OPT program, where they can stay up to one additional year so long as they maintain employment complementary to their education for at least 20 hours a week. But after that year they must either obtain an H-1B or leave.

[disqard]

Thank you so much for this factual reply debunking the GP's (very common) misconception.

Via popular media, there's a narrative that "it's easy to come here legally". Having done that myself, I know that it's not straightforward -- even if all of your paperwork + travel history is in order.

[happytoexplain]

It's not easy for an individual to come to the US because it is such a popular thing to do. From the perspective of Americans, it appears that large numbers of regular people are accomplishing it (because they are - they're just numerically small compared to all the world's people who want to accomplish it).

[happytoexplain]

>you must not trust anything they tell you going forwards

I respect the rest of your comment and have no reason to disbelieve you factually. But this comes off as propaganda. It's a hateful assumption about a person and a conversation you have no idea of. You shouldn't say this to strangers if you're trying to convince them of something.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I'm quite confident, based on my interactions with both strangers and non-strangers in the past, that the original commenter got their information from anti-immigrant propagandists. It does me no good to convince them of something if they're just going to read another paper or tune into the next podcast episode and get more false reasons why immigration should be restricted.

[Muromec]

Meanwhile, I didn't ever qualify for H1B because I don't have a degree, but getting a kennismigrant visa to the twelve starts of harmony jurisdiction was basically "find a place that can pay you above 4k month and file one form with the government".

[TMWNN]

>The actual law, dictated by the F-1 visa program allowing foreign studies, is that a foreign Stanford PhD must permanently depart the United States within 60 days after graduation. There's a one-time extension available under the OPT program, where they can stay up to one additional year so long as they maintain employment complementary to their education for at least 20 hours a week. But after that year they must either obtain an H-1B or leave.

Strange how you accuse me of intentionally lying, yet write the above. I will be more kind than you, and assume that you are unaware of (for example) the EB-2 visa which someone like Karpathy would certainly qualify for immediately. All a H-1B allows, from the "dual intent" perspective, is to temporarily extend the time one can stay in the US while looking for a job that will sponsor for another visa type (typically EB-2); it by itself *does not automatically lead to a green card or US citizenship*.

EDIT: I somehow overlooked another, ahem, inaccuracy in your riposte. Someone like Karpathy would easily have qualified for the 24-month STEM OPT extension to the base OPT year.

Bottom line: A Stanford PhD (not necessarily in a STEM field) who wants to stay in the US has very good odds of being able to do so.

[jltsiren]

EB-2 application timelines are measured in years. If you qualify for a national interest waiver and are not from China or India, it's plausible that you can get a green card before the STEM OPT extension runs out. If any of the three conditions (STEM; national interest waiver; not from China or India) fails, OPT doesn't give you enough time to get a green card.

[SilverElfin]

And after the STEM extension, most have to go through the H1B process to stay. As for EB2, it has quotas as well right, which pushes many into H1B?

[QGQBGdeZREunxLe]

The question I think is more interesting is why can't Canada retain talent?

[m00dy]

The question I think is more interesting is why can't Europe retain talent?

[RealityVoid]

Because of the salaries. They are much higher in the US. Also, the SV bay area has an absurd concentration of talent that you probably can't find anywhere else. Having a head start from anyone else helps. But don't worry, I'm sure that in the current climate Europe will be able to gather and retain talent. I personally would be much more happy to work for lower pay than contributing to the prosperity of such a predatory country.

Funny thing, I considered working in the US a couple of years ago but 2 reasons made me give up. The emigration felt hard and confusing as if they didn't want people there. And second, my wife was afraid of the gun violence in the US.

[QGQBGdeZREunxLe]

I work remote and was offered a chance to move to the US. Exactly the same job both sides of the border but US pay was +30% and joint-filing cut my taxes significantly. I was also able to get a few health issues sorted that had been denied by provincial insurance.

The thing that really pushed me to leave though was housing costs relative to income. In Canada it has reached absurd levels. It was well into the 50% of take home pay going to housing. Here's it's less than a third.

[beej71]

One of my friends was an H1B here about a decade ago. He and his wife had a kid in the US, but then left shortly thereafter back to Europe. He said our social systems were "shameful" and neither of them was interested in sending their kid to a school in the US. And I'm reasonably certain now that they view their child's US citizenship as low-value. All of which sucks. They are talented professionals and we drove them away.

[seanmcdirmid]

Chinese salaries aren’t bad in tech, especially compared to Europe/Japan/Taiwan but even when compared to Canada. It’s pretty clear where talent could go in the future at least if Europe doesn’t up its game.

[decimalenough]

China is not welcoming to talent unless it's Chinese, and since COVID there has actually been an exodus of both locals and expats out of the country.

They belatedly recognized this and introduced a "K visa" specifically to draw in talent, but the mere possibility of this bringing Indians has created a furious backlash.

https://chinaglobalsouth.com/2025/10/05/china-k-visa-indian-...

[seanmcdirmid]

China goes up and down on this, I was there when foreigner employment was on the rise, but that fell off even before COVID. A lot of people left during COVID, surely, but that is recovering now as well. While you aren’t wrong, I think it’s totally possible for their AI and automation boom to draw in significant world talent again.

You’ll see first other Asians (mostly Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese) working in China, they are definitely less noticeable. The rest will follow, Chinese are a lot less xenophobic snd more pragmatic than they appear.

[myk9001]

> I personally would be much more happy to work for lower pay than contributing to the prosperity of such a predatory country.

Even if that pay was so much lower that you'd have to split your rent with flatmates? (yes, European comp is typically that bad, not oveblowing this)

Then I admire your principled position, but you're one in a million.

[optionalsquid]

According to eurostat [1],

> In 2020, 70% of the population in the EU lived in a household owning their home, while the remaining 30% lived in rented housing.

So it does not seem like the price situation is as dire as you suggest, though Germany is on the lower end of the ownership scale.

Personally, I had a flatmate (rented a room) for one year during my studies, but I don't know anyone currently living with flatmates. Plus, it's not like you have to live in the middle of the capital, thanks to extensive public transport

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/w...

[myk9001]

Thanks for the link, intresting. I must be missing something, how do these stats square with home prices being in the 200-500-infinity range ballpark and, a very decent for Europe, salary being 50 thousand euro or so?

Oh, and all these news reports saying how young Europeans have to live with their parents until their thirties?

[RealityVoid]

First of all, I am an EU citizen and I absolutely don't have to split rent with any flatmates. In fact, I own my residence.

Second, I did in fact split my rent with flatmates during my 6 years of college, we lived 5 people in about 200sqft, then my first job I split and apartment with 3 other people. That was luxurious already! Sure, it would tricky to live like that if you have a family, but as a young person? It's fine, actually, it was a great learning experience.

Anyways, what I want to tell you is that life is not that bad in the EU and things can be much much worse than the current status quo. Personally, I have no concern for myself or my comfort, but for my family. I could live in a box in a ditch.

[myk9001]

If you own, you hit a jackpot, basically. Then, yes, life in Europe can be very nice.

Sharing an apartment while in college is OK, even fun in my book.

We're talking about immigrants though, right? (If you don't want more of us in your country, I don't think you're a monster, btw. But entertain me anyway?)

Go check out, say, Berlin salaries on levels.fyi or glassdoor or wherever you prefer and filter out US companies.

Given these conditions, 80000 euro is an amazing salary. Your take home is going to be around 46400 or 3860 euro monthly.

Then head to immoscout24 and check rent prices in Berlin. Let me spoil it a little, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom 65-80 square meters apartment is starting from 1500 euro or so plus 200-300 euro for heating plus the rest of utilities. Or 2000 euro monthly in total.

So after rent you're left with what, 1860 euro? Good luck getting through the month with that money in Berlin.

[prmoustache]

I moved from one rich country (Switzerland) to Spain 6 years ago and accepted dividing my pay by 3 to do this move (pay increased in the meantime and is no 60% of what it was in CH). Basically the only thing that cost more to me now are holidays abroad and I will expect a lower retirement package but quality of life hasn't been reduced.

I could live 200m from the beach without having to share rent with flatmates and now own my place, have easy access to the sea, mountains, great bicycle riding roads and trails with few and respectful drivers, nice places to hangout and good climate to spend time outside.

And I wouldn't trade that to the terrible (to me) quality of life in the USA: road rage, gun violence, car dependency, stupid urbanism, litigation culture, next level puritanism and hypocrisy aren't for me.

[myk9001]

Don't know your personal situation, but sounds like you're in a good spot. Happy for you! (Unironically).

Here're some rough current salaries/cost of living numbers though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46524452

[Muromec]

>Even if that pay was so much lower that you'd have to split your rent with flatmates? (yes, European comp is typically that bad, not oveblowing this)

In tech? Not really. Village kids having studies in the city -- sure, when they are too fancy to live in a dormitory. Tech is more like having a mortgage without your partner contributing kind of salary.

[myk9001]

OK, come to think about it, I have to admit, a job in Tech means you can afford renting a place on your own.

I let my frustration with European comp levels take the best of me. My bad.

[myk9001]

Some rough numbers here -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46524452

[gary_0]

Both questions could fill many books. But having grown up in Canada and having visited Europe, they both seem to have a fundamental disinterest in technology and futuristic-ness, and curiosity in and ambitions about it (relative to the US). There are still techies and nerds, but they are fewer and further between, and more consumerist and casual about it. From personal experience, in the 90's and 2000's, far fewer businesses were interested in websites or using the Internet for commerce, and were slow to adopt it. In Canada, broadband and cellular access lagged far behind the US, and continues to be sub-par and overpriced to this day.

If you did happen to end up with computer-related skills or education, not only was the pay vastly higher in the US, that's where the culture was a lot more enthusiastic about technology (hence why most of the world's major tech companies were founded there). And if your interest in tech extended beyond making money, you probably felt like you would meet more like-minded people in the US.

[jedberg]

Risk taking is more frowned upon in Europe, and it's really hard to start a new business there, because of how employee friendly the laws are.

One of the things that makes starting a startup in US so favorable is that you can fire anyone at any time for any or no reason, which means you can easily retool or cut costs.

And if you're not looking to start a startup, the huge different in salaries and concentration of talent in the US, especially in certain cities, is a huge draw.

[myk9001]

> because of how employee friendly the laws are.

Do you have anything specific in mind? Maybe European law if friendlier to employees on avarege. But in tech US companies seem to offer similar if not better conditions. E.g., Amazon is widely considered an employer straight from hell, and yet they offer 3 monthly salaries when letting an engineer go -- that's more than a European employees typically gets.

On the other hand, both layoffs and long-hours aren't unheard of in, say, Getmany.

[Muromec]

3 months is nothing really. Half a year is more the start of negotiation in a comparable place in Europe. That and having a 2 years burnout leave as an option and having trade unions and the regulator to sign off on your layoffs plan in more reputable places.

Add: It's not that layoffs are not a thing, they are a bit more complicated and expensive for a company than getting a list of people and sending mass-email, then blocking all access.

[disgruntledphd2]

> 3 months is nothing really. Half a year is more the start of negotiation in a comparable place in Europe.

Employment law differs wildly from country to country, there is no general European labour law (with the exception of the working time directive). For instance, I live in Ireland where you can fire anyone for any reason for the first six months, and are not required to pay redundancy until after they've been employed two years.

The statutory redundancy limits on wages are super low for tech, so it's almost free to do layoffs. Additionally, firing people is not really very hard, you just need to have a reason, and follow a process. You need to give a verbal warning, then a written warning, and then fire.

You can't fire people because they don't suck up to you, but you can basically find a reason if you want to.

I recognise that Germany/Austria/France are different, but that's exactly my point, there is very little common European labour law.

[myk9001]

Do you have a link to a labor law stating it's half a year?

[qingcharles]

Thank you. I've been saying the same thing since forever. In Europe if you say you want to start your own company you get a lot of "why would you do that? why not take a nice government job with a pension?"

For all of the USA's myriad flaws, if you say the same thing people will cheer you on.

It infuriates the fuck out of me that practically all the success of the Internet era has come out of one single country that can't even come up with a way to provide healthcare or vacations for their population.

[myk9001]

Majority of innovation comes out of that single country. What's really infuriating is Europe isn't even trying to compete beyond paying some lip service.

[Muromec]

It's not really true. There are European startups, they make it big and you heard of them and used their products. The concentration in US is a thing, because that's where the money is.

[Muromec]

It's more of a problem with big established companies and less in startups really. What I'm familiar with is -- initially everyone gets a temporary 1 year contract. Contract could be not extended, but the company commits to 1 year. After two extensions, you get a permanent one and can't be fired because you look funny to your boss.

Then there is outsourcing, where the contract with their company can be dropped. They are more expensive and have 1 year contracts too. People on permanent contracts have to be persuaded to sign separation agreement and have leverage over you. I have seen some funny examples of management trying to fuck over people for no good reason and then having to continue paying them for 2 years without seeing any output, but that was not a 10 people shop that would go under for it and was self-inflicted too.

They mood in Europe is you as a company owner have to take the risks, not the employees. Which is reflected into salaries of course.

For the startups it's not the problem I saw so far, as they benefit from having to pay lower then otherwise salary, without actually taking the risk. If the company goes under, everyone goes back to job market anyway.

[amenghra]

It’s been easier to build a company, hire people, and sell products in USA. In Europe, you have to deal with many languages and many legal frameworks. You might also have to tailor your product to each region’s culture, which adds a barrier.

[Epa095]

Others has given good reasons, but I think it's hard to overestimate the effect of 'rich gets richer'.

Once you have the stronger pool of talent you get the better companies, you get more income, higher salaries and talented people wants to work with talented people. As a young geek I was very attracted to the tech environments in the US, MIT and silicon valley, and other places were not really on my mind. Even though there are competent places in Europe as well.

[myk9001]

> Once you have the stronger pool of talent you get the better companies

Don't really have anything to back up what I'm about to say except a gut feeling. But Europe actually has got plenty of talent. European business just doesn't seem to value that or have ideas what to do with it.

[CalRobert]

When I was a kid in the US people told me "you can do anything! Anyone can be president! Just set your mind to it!"

Now as someone raising kids in Europe the general sentiment is "The system is rigged, don't even try, anyone with nice things got it through avarice or corruption, nothing ever changes" (to be fair, I've lived in only two European countries, but this seems to be a common sentiment that varies primarily in scale - it was utterly atrocious in Ireland)

As smarmy and unrealistic as the first one is, I'll take it over the latter.

[saagarjha]

You should see how American children feel these days.

[Muromec]

It's the Eastern European mood taking over everything. Doesn't seem to be a sign of anything good, but at least, if you get lucky, you get the endless supply of gallows humor.

[happytoexplain]

That's a valid emotion. Unfortunately, the sentiment you prefer doesn't exist any more. Essentially nobody but the most wealthy and politically elevated have said that for years. And I don't think what I'm saying is pessimistic - I think it's pretty common knowledge.

[CalRobert]

You’re probably right.

I miss optimism.

[disgruntledphd2]

> it was utterly atrocious in Ireland

Speaking as an Irish citizen, this does not match to my experiences at all. But countries are large, and individual experiences are rarely a good sampling of population level traits.

[CalRobert]

Well, I’m also an Irish citizen (albeit naturalised) and it certainly matched the sentiment of both the circle I hung out with in Dublin (champagne socialists and frustrated artists) and Offaly (a different sort entirely….)

Though I did appreciate that the culchies were pretty practical about getting things done.

All the same, “maybe I like the misery” didn’t come out of a vacuum…

[disgruntledphd2]

I dunno man, like Ireland was incredibly poor even in my lifetime and I'm in my 40s. The changes from 1997 to 2007 were absurdly large and the changes from 1987 to 1997 were similarly large (but I was younger so less exposed).

That being said, I come from a pretty long line of culchies so maybe that's it ;)

[ben_w]

Several reasons.

Top talent has the world as their oyster: for the best the answer is obvious even when it is a 96% fit vs. a 96.5% fit.

I don't know the actual %, likely gap used to be much bigger, but point is you can get very sudden state changes in outcome from very small policy change when at that point: think idiom "it was the final straw that broke the camel's back".

Self sorting: the best see that people like them went to the USA already, because those forerunners saw their talent, advise them to join them in the USA.

This one depends both on political stability and everyone not leaving/being kicked out.

Money: especially for startups, especially for tech. US trade deficit and reserve currency enables this as all the dollars have to make it back to the USA somehow, and investment is a somehow.

This one also depends on political stability.

[HelloNurse]

> This one also depends on political stability.

Canada is going to be seen as similar to USA, but open to immigrants and not fascist. Will it develop enough opportunities?

[ben_w]

Canada might be able to do that, but do also remember that the USA's president keeps talking about making Canada into just another state.

There's a big risk that everyone says "I want to be in the country that wins the next war. Therefore, China." and this then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because all (or enough of) the talent made the same choice.

[ljsprague]

The question is whether we're a nation or an economic zone.