Why did the author have to hire someone abroad to come in? We have so much talent sitting right here in the US.
For example, I live in a small town with 3 high end customer service call centers that I know about (there's probably more I don't), and the rates they pay are well below national average because the cost of living is low here. In my area one could build a team of world-class customer service reps in a matter of weeks, pay them better than any place in the area, and have an experienced and high quality staff immediately available when more staff are needed.
Of course I'm not knocking Santiago; having the ability and the qualities necessary to build a quality customer service team is extremely valuable no matter where you are.
> Why did the author have to hire someone abroad to come in? We have so much talent sitting right here in the US.
Have to is the wrong way to look at it. He hired this person because he thought he would be the best at the job. Why should he have to prefer the talent in the US?
Why should we discriminate against someone who is poorer and better skilled in favor of someone who is richer, privileged, and less skilled, just because of the quirk of geographic origin?
Morally I find that abhorrent, and personally it drives me insane that I don't get to work with the best people in the world.
I get that there are political barriers to following that moral claim to its logical conclusion, but they shouldn't mean we discard that moral claim; we should try to remove the political obstacles.
No. The US labor and immigration laws are intended to make sure immigrant labor doesn't pose an unfair competition to US labor. In theory, this should protect both immigrants (from being exploited) and US citizens (from unfair competition).
Unfortunately, this doesn't work as well in practice: the fact that the H-1B is completely tied to a particular employer makes it the modern equivalent of indentured servitude and the H-4 makes things worse by not allowing your family members to work.
But note that what happened was that the whole team ended up being built in Columbia, so that didn't work out so well as an incentive. And generally protectionism is a great way to strangle your competitiveness and watch jobs leave. And that's just the practical side; my point was really against the "you should hire Americans instead of foreigners if you can" ethic that motivates laws like that in the first place. This sense of job entitlement we have is absurd.
Think of it this way: the talent will make its way to create a product, in or outside of the US. If the US immigration insist that the country doesn't need the talent, they just create a competition in another country.
Promoting US citizens just because they are US citizens may work for a while, but I doubt that it is a good long-term strategy.
I guess I'm of the opinion that for some things, surely not everything, but for some things, there's more than one person in the world that can do the job.
The freedom lover inside me gets your point though.
You may be right, and further he may have even been able to find far better people in the US, or maybe in, say, Ghana. But that's just us criticizing the degree to which he optimized his hiring, not a principled complaint about the citizenship of the person he ended up with. What I'm after is that I don't think he has some special moral or ethical responsibility to consider the candidate's nationality in making hiring decisions. (He may, in applying for certain visas, have such a legal responsibility, but then I think that's poor immigration policy on our part.)
I feel for your town and I hope everyone there gets a good job; I just don't think "but we're American!" is the advantage that should get them there.
In my area, we have some of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. We're also some of the hardest working according to statistics taken all over the country. I can guarantee you a call center here is every bit as good as anywhere else in the world. I'd say if you're American and hiring Columbians to do a job we could do for the same price, you're acting not in the interests of your own country. Seems very strange to me not to support your own countrymen. One day the shoe may be on the other foot.
Having a low unemployment rate actually suggests it would be harder to hire a team there.
But on your bigger point, remember this guy was going to move to the US to do this work until he was told no by our government. I want him to work here instead of in Columbia because I care about the US economy and I want it to do well [1]. The question is really about whether this job in San Francisco should go to someone who was born in the US or elsewhere (with, like you said, everything else being equal). I find it really hard to have a pro-natural-born-American job bias when my (and I'm guessing your) ancestors also came here from other countries seeking work, and more generally, I just don't think foreigners are less deserving of good things than people who happen to have been born here. I guess you'd say that's not supporting my own countrymen, and if so, I'm OK with that.
[1] Wait, why do I care about the US economy more than the Colombian economy? I'm not sure, and I struggle with this. Selfishness, I suspect--I live in the US.
Because he already knew a guy, and he knew the guy was good, and he wanted to work with that guy. And "why did he have to hire someone from abroad" is a question that makes no more sense than "why should he have to hire someone local?"
The title says a team, suggesting that you can't build any team at all in US. But the evidence presented shows that he couldn't build a specific team: there exists a team he couldn't build in US.
For the record, the demonstrated effect of US tech workers visa caps is less jobs for US-born workers too (as the economy is artificially slowed down as a whole).
Do you have a citation from a more neutral ideally peer reviewed source? I don't trust The Partnership For a New American Economy. They are attempting to advance a particular political agenda on immigration and should not be considered a reliable or unbiased source for information.
The Partnership for a New American Economy is a coalition of business leaders and mayors launched by Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch to influence public opinion and policymakers toward comprehensive immigration reform. "The partnership will enable Mayors and CEOs to demonstrate to policymakers the vital role that immigration plays in our economy by publishing studies, conducting polls, convening forums, and sponsoring public education campaigns." Among other goals, the partnership will pursue Congress and the White House to enact legislation which will create "a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants now in the United States". The partnership will seek to influence "by publishing studies, conducting polls, convening forums, and sponsoring public education campaigns".
The fact that the organization that compiled the report has a political agenda doesn't mean that its data is somehow made-up. You can skip the recommendations, which are subjective, and only consider the numbers they report to form your own judgement.
Everybody is pushing one agenda or another. Hopefully, in a humanist, rational society, you wouldn't get put on mute on the basis of having an opinion, especially if you have hard data to present.
I worked for one of the big four global immigration firms and the prevailing wage is very easy to game. Check this out: http://flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx Play around with it and see what you find.
Now, say you're a company and you have multiple locations. You apply for the employee at the cheapest location, then pick a title that will get a lower prevailing wage, and say they are entry level when really they have 5 years of experience. So the prevailing wage determination is skewed. This is what I mean about telling a white lie. Anything that is available to companies that has a monetary reward for telling "white lies" to the government and depends on the companies "being honest" let alone understanding or agreeing with the overarching intent of the legislation -- is going to have the absolute shit abused out of it eventually.
If a Software Engineer gets a higher prevailing wage than a Software Developer (or vice versa) according to the DOL. Which title do you think the employer will pick to apply under? The answer is obvious.
Thanks for that. I think the US tech worker visa cap is just a nasty form of nationalistic protectionism. I am a US born citizen, but that does not mean that I shouldn't have to compete with someone born internationally. Morally that just seems wrong, and there is evidence to prove it could be economically harmful.
People are concerned with inequality between nations, but policies like this prevent opportunity worldwide and hurt US workers and consumers for the sake of "protecting US workers".
Sounds to me like Businesses are spitefully avoiding creating jobs that they can't give to imported labor. I get that H1Bs are cheaper, and now, you can bring them and their wives over, but why not just go there and save the rest of us having listen to you whine about not being able to find people, when it's really about finding people at sub-market prices?
The parent is not generalizing. The first step of the application process, not just for H1B but for all employment-based visas (including green card), is to submit a ton of evidence to the Department of Labor that proves that you are being paid at least the median salary for your position in the region you are employed in. You can read more about that here (second paragraph): http://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/h1b.htm
Do some employers game this system? Sure. But doing so is risky and repeat offenders can get blacklisted by the USCIS.
My own experience is that H1-Bs were cheap consultant fodder, but that was from the late 90's. Hire a bunch of folks from India under H-1B, place them at companies, and pay them lower (non-consultant wages, poor benefits), then collect the difference the higher bill rate. I can name a couple of companies in the Twin Cities that pulled that stunt. The above is my generalization of my experience as the GP and GGP did.
I saw that page, but I was looking for the actual wage stats and kept running into 404s (including one from that page).
I am on H1B and definitely above the market price in terms of cost. Not all H1B's are equal. Some of us studied here in the US and then got a job here. There is another class of H1B workers which are brought on-site. However, most important difference is the H1 vs L1. I have seen more abuse of L1 (and the employees) by companies like Cognizant, Wipro, Infosys etc.
I'm on H1B, and having interviewed with several companies in the Valley, I'm definitely not below market price.
And for the wifes part: my wife has the same qualification as I have (two MSc in CS/IT), yet, she is not allowed to work. Not even with the proposed change in the law, as it requires to have ongoing greencard process, which itself may take years. So if you think that those shobby cheap visa workers just bring their freeriders with them, you are very far away from the reality.
I find this logic bizarre: "The US should also learn a lesson here. Because of the current, non-sensical immigration laws, Americans lost sixteen jobs."
I don't see the connection. You wanted to hire someone on a visa - not a US citizen. You couldn't, so instead of looking for one person within the country (possibly somewhere cheaper than where your business is), you decided to hire him and 15 other non-citizens.
I don't think that has anything to do with immigration law being messed up. That has to do with you making a decision to hire 16 people in another country.
That's not a bad thing, but it's just not what you're claiming it is.
He didn't make a decision to hire 16 people in another country. He made a decision to partner with ONE guy that couldn't get permission to work in this country. Had he been granted his H1-B, then the 15 additional hires would have most likely been local. And then any future growth would have included local resources.
The decision was for the first strategic hire. All of the remaining hires were just an offshoot from that initial decision as to where to locate the new team.
Not only that, the US lost their contribution to the local economy: they won't buy groceries, pay landlords or buy from the local car dealership. There is a huge missed opportunity there.
I just don't get why the US wouldn't want qualified workers to get in the US. Singapore had this lesson learned well.
Your point is correct. But hiring a US citizen would be better for the country because not only would there be the potential tax income but the savings from lower unemployment.
The Bay area might be short on developers but I know there are talented developers in other states that are unemployed or underemployed. So Colombia is ok but Nebraska is not?
While I agree that hiring a US citizen would be better for the country and I'm certain that all talented US citizens have jobs or are creating more jobs (through startups). But, I think there is merit in attracting top talent from other countries and retaining them as well (who in turn contribute to the economy).
When people come to the US, they have to pay taxes on their income to the US cities, states and federal government. The cities and states can use this money to support our standard of living. Bringing people to our city is a vote for our standard of living.
Employing people overseas means we pay less, but the money goes out of the country. That means that, in the long run, we are voting against our standard of living and in favor of someone with a smaller cost of living than us, perhaps much less extensive social safety nets, etc. So in the long term, our workers' wages will be repressed in a race to the bottom with others. And our cities will have to cut their social programs to match whatever happens in the countries we outsource to. This occurs not just in the US but any countries with a high cost of living.
This is just mean reversion, and in the end of the day it's hard to fight against this. Things tend to equal out and the wages in the US will eventually approach the world average if the US stops being the main reserve currency of the world, and the dollar becomes weaker.
If the dollar becomes comparatively weaker then more people will probably be employed in the US (albeit at a lower relative wage) all things being equal. This is why countries like China work to keep their currency artificially low.
Well, somewhat tangential: There aren't enough (sufficiently skilled) Americans to satisfy the demand for tech jobs (primarily, programming).
All the large tech firms are hiring as quickly as they can, and are still starving for devs. Ignoring the education problem, the next best approach is to hire from overseas; and that's also extremely difficult due to immigration law.
Are the large tech firms REALLY hiring as quickly as they can? Or do they just prefer guest workers they can pay less and exert greater control over via their worker visas?
This person seems like they would have been the right person for this job.
Apart from the people complaining about the restrictions of H-1B's their guy was willing to accede to those restrictions.
These regulations are designed to let people like this guy come work in these situations.
The issue was that too many requests were filed so an unfair system (lottery) was used to determine who would even be evaluated. Because of this high volume of requests, two things happen. First of all, you can't properly verify if the requests are legitimate (a specialized worker, unrivaled in this position) or illegitimate (a cheaper worker, willing to put up with under-market conditions for the benefit of leaving a worse foreign situation). Secondly, when the validity of a request isn't checked thoroughly, it's too easy to abuse and the number of illegitimate requests go up, making it take even more resources to get through requests.
It sucks. The better solution is to make fair rules, and have the resources to apply them fairly. Unfortunately, hiring more government workers to be able to better process and make sure good foreign workers don't get left out of the country is not a politically safe move to make, while keeping them foreigners from stealing American jobs is more appealing to a public worried about unemployment. Trying to convince them that being able to hire a guy from out of the country means that more jobs will open up is not a straightforward thing to do.
> The better solution is to make fair rules, and have the resources to apply them fairly.
No, the better solution is to just open the borders and let everybody in who wants to work. Bigotry against foreigners is no less ugly than bigotry against any other arbitrary group. Letting in people who are willing to work cheaply isn't "illegitimate" or "abuse", it benefits everyone involved.
This foolish reasoning leans pretty strongly on the logical fallacy that it is in the best interest of everyone for all new businesses to be founded in the US, when in fact, it is in the best interest of everyone for new businesses to be founded all over the world, creating jobs everywhere.
This, in fact, has created the immigration supply and demand problem that the OP finds frustrating.
Build your business in columbia. Sell things over the internet or whatever your crashed ass website does, and live a happy life.
Your argument is absolutely true in the long run, from a global perspective. But can you really argue that the country in which a business is founded wouldn't benefit more than a neighboring country?
yes, i can. let's take columbia for an example. the united states spends (obviously wastes) billions of dollars fighting cocaine production there. it may actually be a net win to fucking _send_ entrepreneurs there to give creative-minded young folks an alternative to spending their creativity evading capture.
Fair enough for an example that is fighting an illegal activity whose origins are outside of the country, but that seems like a fringe scenario, albeit a huge market. In the context of a business start, it is almost always more beneficial to a local/regional/national economy to have it be domestic.
Why does it matter anymore? Even most undocumented foreigners pay taxes... as long as you pay taxes, why does it matter?
Why does imperialism/nationalism still exist? Why does it matter where you came out of a vagina - why should that determine your opportunities (through limiting where you can work)?
In the modern world, we'd be better off considering everyone citizens of the world and dropping the attitude we have about our borders.
I have a hard time with this. Consider the case of New Zealand. It has a population of about 4.5 million, and a land area considerably larger than California. Like the US, it is largely a country descended from immigrants.
If New Zealand opened its borders, how quickly do you think it could grow its population? My guess is that within a couple of decades, they probably could add maybe 20 million? The US currently takes about 1.2 million immigrants a year, and demand is far higher than that.
Do you feel that immigration on this scale would be a good thing for the 4.5 million citizens who currently reside in New Zealand? Or, even if it isn't, that they have a moral obligation to allow it?
I wonder what will happen when "the money" realize the US (and SV/SF) is one of the worse places to assemble a team and is only there because of, guess what, the money.
You can get work visas for lots of interesting places (Canada, Europe, etc) in a much shorter time and for a smaller cost
More startups are in SV because of the larger amount of investment capital that is interested in software and the large amount of people to hire with very specific skill sets that you may be looking for. It's like thinking you need food first before you need oxygen, when it's the other way around.
Indeed this is why places like London which, in total capital terms, is much bigger than SV doesn't have as many internet focused start ups that reach massive valuations; there isn't as much internet focused capital floating around, and that in turn is because UK (and similarly European) companies don't make as many hi-tech acquisitions as US companies do. Investment is largely a supply driven business.
He makes an interesting claim, that immigration policy is doing more harm to American jobs than helping them. That said, having discovered that the team in Columbia is performing well, he's worked around the situation.
Unfortunately, hiring is just one piece of many puzzles that have to be solved when building your business. In 3 to 5 years, or at his first big 'liquidity' event (acquisition or what ever), where he switches over from 'startup' to 'S&P 500 material', that is when the other externalities of these decisions will be visible, in the future looking back. At that time, and that will be a good data point going forward. The cautionary tale is to let a decision that is working for you now define its total value. Business decisions have very long tails that stretch into the future.
I am a developer that was born in a third-world country in Central America. There aren't many good opportunities here, but I was lucky enough to land a remote job with a US company, but before I was considering moving to the US and getting a job there. I guess next time I should consider a different country. Maybe Canada? Or somewhere in Europe?
Why do people always complain so much about the US immigration?
From what I have heard from friends abroad is that its just as hard if not harder in other places.
For example in Costa Rica, just to be able to legally get a cellphone for yourself you must: be a citizen, a legal resident, or own/start a business. And we arent talking about a job here, just getting a cellphone.
2.5 years ago: I needed to provide both my renting agreement and my full employment contract to get a T-Mobile $80/m subscription for two, in the mid of Silicon Valley. The US is definitely making it harder than is should be :)
On the other hand, a close relative went to Singapore about the same time, and their immigration procedure was smooth, straighforward, everything in place, no barriers anywhere. Singapore wants to have qualified professionals, the US see them as numbers.
>2.5 years ago: I needed to provide both my renting agreement and my full employment contract to get a T-Mobile $80/m subscription for two, in the mid of Silicon Valley. The US is definitely making it harder than is should be :)
Thats horrible! You could go buy a pre paid phone with out having all of the overhead from T-Mobile.
The difference is that it was probably a T-Mobile policy, not a law or mandate by the government (like in Costa Rica).
>the US see them as numbers.
Exactly. I wish we were like Singapore but its much easier for a smaller Country. They see a person as an investvent in the future, the US sees you as a number and wants your taxes.
It has nothing to do with the size of the country. The US sees immigration as a privilege offered to a lower being [note], while Singapore sees (qualified) immigration as a way forward.
[note]: This may have been true for a long time in the history. People were going to the US mainland because their conditions were bad enough, and anything would have been better elsewhere. I can understand that point of view, although e.g. my situation is on equal terms in the US vs my home country. However, I don't think it'll serve the US interest in the long run.
You should probably fix your website before you extol the virtues of outsourcing. That said, I think immigration should be more open to everyone. Big companies get H1-B workers bring wages down for engineers and programmers. Agriculture, construction and the restaurant industry also thrive on legal and illegal immigration and also bring the wages down in those industries. Doctors, lawyers, accounts, etc exist in a protected class of workers. We should open the gates for H1-B style doctors, lawyers, accountants, and managers.
> Big companies get H1-B workers bring wages down for engineers and programmers.
Could you back that up with some hard data? As far as I know, the whole point behind the H-1Bs is that the companies are not allowed to pay the immigrants less than you would pay the local talent.
Ugh. No, it's not sarcasm. Look, your example of Bank of America's practices from 2001 is about as representative as my saying "Well, I'm currently on an H-1B1 and I'm not underpaid." It's an anecdote, not hard data.
I haven't been able to read the article because it's not opening for me. But the headline sounds like a cheap shot on US immigration policies. But that's just idiocy. The US lets more immigrants in each year than any other country in the world.
That article tries to make the argument that the US is still not doing well with immigration because the total population of immigrants compared to the general population ranks about 23d. But still, if you look at absolute numbers, the US still allows the most immigrants of any other country. Those who try to argue that our immigration system is broken simply have some alternate agenda or hold some sort of spite toward the US, if you ask me.
you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Are you an immigrant? are you hiring immigrants? Probably not: if you were, you wouldn't be saying that the system is not broken. There are so many wrong things in the system. Just to name a couple: H1B allows you to work for A SPECIFIC employer. Spouses of H1B are NOT allowed to work (not even as a volunteer). And let's not talk about the implications of work & taxes & healthcare.
Firstly, you don't have to experience something first hand to know about it. Secondly, my girlfriend is an immigrant, and she has no problems finding work. Her parents were immigrants too for that matter, and even owned their own business here before moving back to England.
I think it depends on the org. My wife attended training in an organization to try to work as a volunteer, and for some reason (can't recall exact details right now), they were asking her for work permit in order to be a volunteer.
For example, I live in a small town with 3 high end customer service call centers that I know about (there's probably more I don't), and the rates they pay are well below national average because the cost of living is low here. In my area one could build a team of world-class customer service reps in a matter of weeks, pay them better than any place in the area, and have an experienced and high quality staff immediately available when more staff are needed.
Of course I'm not knocking Santiago; having the ability and the qualities necessary to build a quality customer service team is extremely valuable no matter where you are.