[lateforwork]

Because if we didn't we wouldn't have a tech industry?

The main problem with immigrant talent in computer field is that legislators don't understand the difference between IT and Tech product development jobs. IT jobs don't need immigrant talent, so companies like Accenture, Infosys etc. should not be given H-1B visas. But tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple, OpenAI etc. absolutely need immigrant talent, or they will lose to Chinese competitors.

[woeirua]

That is absolutely not true. There are plenty of Americans who can do these jobs.

[lateforwork]

> There are plenty of Americans who can do these jobs.

This thinking is wrong. For IT jobs, the work is pre-defined and you go find people who can do the job. For product development this is sometimes the case, but for truly innovative products, such as AI models, this is not the case. You have to hire the best in the world and give them the resources they need, as opposed to defining the project upfront and hiring people "who can do the job".

[yabutlivnWoods]

"Truly innovative".

I wrote my first neural net in the late 90s. Based on nothing but an old geocities post some rando put up about training a model to only unlock a pet door for their cat.

I implemented the same and it worked.

Where you see true innovation I see run of the mill. OpenAI, Google, etc are propping up data center rental business they came to rely on to titillate biology with whatever spaghetti that sticks. That's it.

The interesting science isn't happening anywhere close to big tech.

The mathematics of LLMs exists in textbooks from 1950s. Your entire comment chain here is little more than reciting propaganda.

[lateforwork]

> I wrote my first neural net in the late 90s

Why aren't we using it, if that's all the world needs?

[yabutlivnWoods]

Oh this game, huh?

If your powers of analysis were worth anything you would be running the world not copy-pasting hype straight from CNBC and Big Tech PR

As you are not running the world your analysis is worthless. As such I say; good day, sir.

[abenga]

Why is it important that Google (or any of these large companies) only hire Americans for their jobs in the first place? They are global companies now, they make money from everywhere. Why is the insular "Americans only" idea worthy of consideration at all?

[acdha]

How many “best in the world” people are we talking about, though? Based on what I’ve seen that’s a very small percentage (maybe 5%) while the rest were being hired by companies who valued having workers with limited negotiating power.

(I’m not opposed to immigration at all but it was transparent how for decades the industry resisted any change which would make it easier for a skilled H1-B worker to take a better job)

[lateforwork]

> having workers with limited negotiating power

Sorry, this is 100% false. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta etc. do not hire H-1Bs in order to depress wages. That does happen, but not at these companies. It typically happens when hiring IT workers.

[acdha]

If it’s “100% false”, I’d think you could have addressed the point. Do you think that H1-Bs have had the same negotiating power as permanent residents and citizens? Do you think that companies-especially the huge contractors and enterprise vendors who hired so many of them—did not exploit them?

I’m not saying that there aren’t people who really lived up to the idea that the best in the world were coming here—I’ve known a few of them myself—but that there were a much greater number of people who were not in that class and it wasn’t exactly a secret that their managers knew they could be imposed on more than their equivalently-skilled colleagues.

[newfriend]

The mere presence of H1-B workers depresses wages systemically.

[intended]

I think they are making a meta argument?

That H1B labour allowed other firms to build tech, which kept those firms competitive, creating a deeper economy and experienced bench.

That depth then enabled more advanced tech firms to be born.

At least thats what I think they are saying.

The analogy would be that China took over low tech manufacturing, and then because of that were able to develop expertise to move up the value chain.

At the same time, supply demand curves are real. If you have more workers, it should result in competition that drives down wages. (ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL)

There was a distinction being made between Tech and IT, which I am not too sure about.

[thatfrenchguy]

You essentially have no data to back this up though, especially given the filed H1B/L-1 labor data for big tech is first year of employement with only base salary, which bears no ressemblance to what their wages will be even just 3 years in.

[lateforwork]

In the early 1990s a good software engineer was paid $40K starting salary, and good companies like Sun Microsystems paid $45K. If you adjust that for inflation it is around $100K. But good companies in silicon valley today pay $120K plus stock grants (so around $170K or so), and Meta and Google pay much more.

So software engineer salaries have gone up dramatically in the last 35 years H-1B visa has been around. In fact, the H-1B visa is the reason the salaries have gone up. Without it the industry would be stagnant, just like non-tech S&P 500 companies and most companies in Europe in the same time period.

[mikert89]

you fundamentally dont understand economics

[bradlys]

These companies were all guilty of wage collusion years ago. Their culture has not gotten any better about this since.

[woeirua]

I'm not opposed to hiring the cream of the crop using H1Bs, but that would only be a few thousand people a year. The vast majority of H1Bs though are people taking jobs that Americans can definitely do.

[Hawkenfall]

Not sure how you came to draw this conclusion, as there's lots of data out there showing droves of Computer Science graduates here in the states unable to land jobs.

[duped]

I think that data captures the fact that there are more people being handed degrees without an education than there are jobs. Especially when there are thousands of mid career people on the market right now.

[Yizahi]

Outside of the Default country what you call product development is a part of IT, along with QAs, SDETs, Devops and others. All of that is IT globally. And what USA calls IT is called system administration or something similar.

[thinkingtoilet]

We would absolutely have a tech industry. The richest people on the planet, however, would make slightly less money. It is not an exaggeration to say this is what the entirety of American society is based on right now.

[Madmallard]

Doesn't sound accurate. Please list some sources here that are credible that explain your point. Just sounds like dismissive bias.

[shimman]

We had a tech industry prior to H1Bs before the 90s. What we didn't have was Silicon Valley corporatism that doesn't value American labor nor American education. It's why SV is so gun-ho on charter schools and devaluing American labor.

Let's not act like we need to import 80k "high tech" workers that amount to writing react components and spring endpoints.

Hardly anything hard that we couldn't force companies to train workers to do, but they don't want to ever help people they just want to suck up all the money in the room while decimating entire populations.zzzzzzz

Also, as an American I don't really benefit if US corporations are doing "better." How does that help the person that can't pay for healthcare or afford to go to school, but they sure can get their serving of Zuckerberg slop? I'm supposed to care about these companies success? Really? I hope they go down in flames.

The problem is that the rich and elite have captured and dictated American tech policy for far too long.

[thesmtsolver2]

Do you share the same thoughts for blue collar immigrants?

[shimman]

No, because blue collar immigrants aren't working for cartels that hold deeply undemocratic views.

[munksbeer]

It is interesting to see the different views on immigration. Here in the UK, leading up to the brexit vote, everyone said blue collar workers were the problem, because they depressed wages for the poor and made the middle class richer because they could build cheaper houses, pick cheaper crops, etc.

In Singapore, the rage is mostly against higher earner immigrants, because they take all the good jobs, making the middle class in Singapore poorer.

I'm sensing a bit of a mix in your US centric argument.

All in all, a lot of people just hate immigration, always have, always will. It is a topic as old as time.

[lateforwork]

> people just hate immigration, always have, always will

"We have always been a nation of immigrants who hate the newer immigrants." -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Really it is not immigration people hate, it is having to compete for food.

[lateforwork]

> How does that help the person that can't pay for healthcare or afford to go to school

How would you like to make t-shirts for rich Chinese, for $5 an hour? There is a reason Americans are not doing that. It is because we are smarter than the rest of the world. How do you think that happened? Were all the smart people born here? Nope. It is because smart people born around the world immigrated here. The prosperity they bring doesn't only help high tech workers, it feeds the economy, so everyone benefits.

[shimman]

I mean we aren't doing it because capitalists decided they would rather move the factories outside of the country because they don't care about workers.

Americans are absolutely willing to work in factors, but capitalists want chattel slave workers instead.

Your view of history is farcical, acting as if American workers had any real say in their countries industrial capacity rather than a few thousand people decided to inflict mass poverty to tens of millions of Americans.

[yabutlivnWoods]

> But tech companies like Google, Meta, Apple, OpenAI etc. absolutely need immigrant talent, or they will lose to Chinese competitors.

Let them lose.

Google and the rest do not prop up humanity. They prop up a financial engineering Ponzi scheme.

You're just parroting media and social tropes you grew up with.

We could assert in our children social truth about other forms of economics; for example, healthcare as a tent pole rather than stock valuations; still requires technology and jobs and we don't remain the last modern economy on the planet without universal healthcare. We're losing to Russia and China in healthcare.

But thankfully we win when the metric phallic rockets to nowhere and Google search uptime?

You should consider your economic benchmarks and their provenance; a bunch of self selecting biological organisms that we socially describe as billionaires have convinced you via their fear mongering that if we don't give them all the power giant foot will step on us