[vitd]

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.

[blister]

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.

[untog]

You wanted to hire someone on a visa - not a US citizen.

US citizen or not, they'll be paying US tax. As it is, the country has lost out on potential tax income from those employees.

[syntern]

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.

Disclaimer: I'm on H1B myself.

[teh_klev]

People completely miss this about immigrant workers (I use the term in a positive way). Tax generation, local spending etc.

[wvenable]

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.

[untog]

How many talented developers are out of work in the US right now? Particularly in somewhere like the Bay area, where this startup would be based.

[gohrt]

> How many talented developers are out of work in the US right now? Particularly in somewhere like the Bay area,

0, which is why salaries and rents are incredibly high.

[wvenable]

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?

[fredfoobar]

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).

[EGreg]

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.

[tankenmate]

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.

[nevir]

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.

[jbail]

There aren't enough (sufficiently skilled) Americans to satisfy the demand for tech jobs (primarily, programming)

Can you provide some proof? I hear people say this, but I'd love to see real data to back it up

Wages are more or less stagnant (source: http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill...) and many of the big companies Silicon Valley just got spanked for illegal no poach hiring agreements.

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?

[insuffi]

Uh, who spouts the bullshit about paying less, that it's become so widely accepted as fact.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-h1b-visa...

[gohrt]

Read the doc you linked:

Software wages are trending up

http://s2.epi.org/files/charts/IT-Guestworkers_Figure-O.png....

and judging from the spikes in that graph, the data is bunk anyway, including IPO millionaires in the average, instead of using median.

[gnrlist]

There isn't a shortage of engineers in this country... http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-i...