Anyone familiar with internet startup culture knows how little capital it takes to start a tech company these days. With hardware and software costs practically nonexistent for most new companies, the main determinant of whether a promising startup will get underway and off the ground lies with the founders’ circumstances, namely whether they can pay off their personal bills from month-to-month and find a place to work.
This climate should produce an a important, long-term counterweight to the problems of our economy as a whole. While established corporations have been reeling, laying off workers and draining money from the federal budget, tech companies in high growth sectors have continued to sprout up with the promise of new jobs and services. And with costs so low, entrepreneurship – and its concomitant boon to the economy – these days relies overwhelmingly on one factor: the entrepreneur.
Numerous startup incubators over the last few years have emerged in the US and elsewhere to reflect this new state of affairs. Y Combinator led the charge in 2005 and has since been joined with organizations such as TechStars, LaunchBox Digital and fbFund, to name just a few. These firms serve as enablers, giving entrepreneurs just the nudge they need to get started, whether that nudge comes as a bit of money to survive until a larger round of funding or some mentorship that emboldens them into action.
Unfortunately, the pool of entrepreneurs that can benefit from these programs is smaller than it could be due to outdated immigration law. Ideally, an aspiring entrepreneur from Bangalore who has some chops and a wish to start the next Google in San Francisco should be able to immigrate and set up shop here. With a little venture backing, there’s virtually no downside since they won’t be taking out loans or stealing anyone else’s job. If their venture doesn’t work out (a likely scenario), they can pack their bags and head back home.
The potential upside, on the other hand, is obvious and enormous. So why doesn’t this scenario play out more often?
One big reason is that the immigration law that’s most relevant to would-be entrepreneurs isn’t designed with their likely circumstances in mind. A lot of talk about the H-1B visa was made around the election last year, but that visa only covers immigrants who want to become employed by preexisting American firms. The lesser known EB-5 visa intends to help foreigners create businesses in the US, but it involves a couple stipulations that make it unworkable for many modern entrepreneurs.
First off, the EB-5 requires that an immigrant invests $1 million (or $500,000 under certain circumstances) of their own money in a new business. This rule ignores the fact that tech startups are often backed by venture capitalists, and it overemphasizes the role of money instead of assessing a foreigner’s talent and ambition as primary factors. The EB-5 is also only given to immigrants who can promise to create 10 full-time jobs within 2 years, which doesn’t mesh well with the reality that successful startups (while creating plenty of new jobs in the medium and long-runs) often maintain deliberately low head counts in the short-run.
It’s for these reasons that a group of techies and politicians alike have begun to rally around the concept of a Startup Visa, which essentially constitutes a set of improvements to the EB-5 that would make it more useful to today’s entrepreneurs. The Startup Visa concept, which was initially proposed and explored by Y Combinator’s Paul Graham and Foundry Group’s Brad Feld, aims to get rid of the requirements for $1 million in investment and the creation of 10 jobs. In their place, it would establish the requirement that entrepreneurs be financially backed by at least one accredited investor in the US. This rule would serve primarily to validate the foreigner as a promising entrepreneur by leveraging the venture capital community’s judgment as a proxy. It would also ensure the admittance of only entrepreneurs with enough capital to get started.
The StartupVisa movement was first introduced to me by a few of its main proponents – Dave McClure, Eric Ries and Shervin Pishevar – this past September when I was traveling with them through DC on a GeeksOnAPlane trip. One of our trip’s members, Eric Diep, had a particularly poignant story about the difficulties he’s encountered as an entrepreneur from Canada who tries to conduct business in the US. You can watch a video of his story from the trip above.
If you have any personal stories about how difficult it can be as a foreign entrepreneur wishing to immigrate to the US, please share them in the comments. And whether or not you are in such a situation, please provide us with your impression of the Startup Visa concept by answering our poll below. If you wish to support the cause, you can tweet your local representative using @2gov, a service run by David Binetti that enables grassroots communication with House and Senate politicians. US Representative Jared Polis of Colorado has already begun proposing these sorts of changes to the EB-5, but many more politicians will need to get aboard the idea before the new law becomes a reality.
First! Hey Mark why don’t you just come back to TC and write full time like the good ‘ole days. We all know you want to.
After the article from Mr. Wadhwa last week, is this the post you are hinging on to keep the traffic levels up for this weekend?
Anyway, on topic..I don’t think it works cool for the emigrating entrepreneurs..
For one, as a bootstrap venture, I would rather stay at home minmizing my expenditure. $500 is more than enough to survive on when working on a startup here in India..Like Felipe in the comments below says, the expenses are too high in US to get out of that vicious cycle..
Secondly, unless I am working on some product like the Google or Yahoo, it makes no sense to shift to the US..If you are going to develop things for a crowd you’ve never been a part of, I am afraid it’s going to fail nine out of ten times..
The movement is nice and all but I don’t think it will stop the brain drain the U.S is experiencing and will continue to experience.
The brain drain which US is experiencing begins in elementary school.
The “brain influx” of the past 10 years has wiped out the U.S. economy. Let the brains drain – they never had anything to contribute anyway. Funny, but before all those foreign “brains” got here, the U.S. economy was booming.
Agreed.
They have nothing to show so they rant and rave about intangibles such as their brains, their IQ. Were it not for Indians, those 7-elevens would still be there at every street corner.
Because u were leaving on your own shell. Now you are exposed and look what you are now.
Agreed. The “brain drain” doesn’t exist. And even if it did, its not the federal government’s business to regulate.
Focus on fixing the schools. Of course, without a real reason to fix schools we never will.
After spending over $40K in my education in the US and lived there for 7 years I was still unable to quit my job and start my own business. I tried several ideas on a part-time basis, but it was just too hard. (I-stats, YowTRIP)
Then I realized I could come to Canada and in 10 months I was granted permanent residency here. So now I’m free to work on my next venture: Twtapps.
So, for those of you who don’t want to work for somebody else anymore (nor don’t want to want 5-6 years for a green card), come to Canada! I love it here, the startup community is great and growing by the second, and the people are very welcoming.
Montreal is my favorite of all!
If you need advice on the immigration process, feel free to ping me at @twtfelipe
Good luck to you all!
I am also considering Canada or L1 visa in US (which is not covered here on some reason)
L1 is for someone who have sustainable business overseas and what to open office in US
Vlad,
we will be pleased to supply you with our law firm’s memos on L-1 and other business visas, upon request.
Jeff
I heard Canada was the real deal and much cheaper than Silly Valley.
I’m getting quite a few emails about coming to Canada, so a wrote a blog post about it. Hopefully this will be helpful to some of you.
http://www.feli...-within-a-year/
See you here in Canada in a year
Wait…You can get a green card in 5-6 years?? you must not be Indian or Chinese
Americans are dumb according to the pole they did what they didnit show was Indians they say your guys are dumb because about 80 % of us the Indians they know what a browser is because they hap to use it to commute to work even they work in San Francisco they hap to use many different browsers to take the train and the train not expensive it only a miner fee you must understand for what mater can you ask it not who you know it who you know it not who you know it what you know how to use.
This is the reason I am against immigration.
LOL
Dumb? I think you mean “poll”, not “pole”.
Immigrants who can’t even speak proper English are not needed in America.
Average Indian IQ is 81, average American IQ is 98. No wonder a decade of importing these losers has destroyed America’s economy. Deport them all and give the jobs back to Americans as agreed in 1998 before they destroy the econ totally. What a disaster for America these people have been.
You point out “pole” when he cannot even spell “have?”
You nothing but racist dog go back to your farm and get some more sun tan for your neck to get redder.
+1 LOL. Please start a blog; I guarantee I will read it.
First off, I betcha your name is not Shackleford.
Did u ever go to school man, that rant of yours was brutal to read.
Maybe he got married and changed his name?
you are a disgrace to whatever planet you belong too..
The parent post is clearly a hoax. You’ve all been punk’d…
Momar Shackleford exists:
http://www.link...eford/14/b4/192
Actually, here’s another Momar Shackleford. This guy’s got 4 connections. Looks like this profile has been around for a while. Apparently Momar is an executive chef at at an airline company.
http://www.link...ford/14/a9b/8ba
i bet everyone has figured out that no decent person would name their child momar shackleford. please. this is so fake. i see warren picked it up too, while everyone else laughs at the farcity of this.
My name original it Momar Quadatihdi my American sponsor from the Lutheran Church they good family they name is Shackleford, Mr. Glenn Shackleford. So I change my last name to Shackleford when I get my US citizenship when I became naturlized American citizen.
right….
@Felipe. Thanks for the tip – could be a good alternative.
Many times people come here with different languages and cultures, and are only interested in making money. If we are to remain an open and free society we’ll need to restrict certain behavior an prohibit companies from hiring certain people.
Somehow the use of “open and free” and “restrict and prohibit” in the same sentence didn’t sound right…
Regardless, that’s not the problem here. It’s easy to get a job in the US. The hard part is how NOT to have to have a job.
well, not so much these days
Very true – they came and cleaned out all the money American IT workers had produced in the 1990s. $45 billion a year to India alone. No wonder America is such a mess. And now they want to raise the vusa caps again even higher. This is plunder. Call your Congresspeople and get this stopped now. Gabrielle Geffords is the one sponsoring the new bill to raise the caps to 130,000 or 180,000 per year.
Bobo
It seems like you don’t have talent and on the name of family life – you don’t work enough so we have to get people from Asia. Better you start working and give some exercise to your fat body and braid. Help America!
braid = brain … didn’t u get that Bobo? I hope u can understand that much
I think Bobo meant to say braid. He’s Indian and he refers to the fat braids in his wife’s hair. He thereupon for some reason assumes you too have braids.
Its a great movement.. Hopefully should gain some momentum. I agree with Felipe’s argument and frustration. The GC cycle keeps you locked in your employer even if all you want is to be one.
The point here is every successful startup leads to new jobs – which is what we need in this country..
The problem is there, are very few successful startups created by foreigners. Most of them fail.
How is that different from any startup started by Americans?
Most startups fail. Period.
Hey TPP
Don’t question Bobo. He doesn’t have brain to understand that.
Bobo and his command on English goes to trash. Language doesn’t help you to write Logic. For Logic you need real brain.
As long as the startup companies are not ever IT consulting companies… because then it could and probably would quickly be gamed into the same mess that has given the H-1B such a stained reputation. Hundreds of shell venture capitalists could each “finance” hundreds of their buddies in Bangalore (a city that was mentioned in this piece) who would create “tech startups” of their personal IT consulting services… mostly resulting in putting domestic American consultants out of work by undercutting their rates. Same old same old.
Everyone who knows anything about the H-1B disaster knows that any Congressional program meant to hand out freebies to foreigners will be twisted yet again by the same corrupt process and lawyers who turned the H-1B visa program into a clearing house for foreign labaors with fake resumes working in and getting exploited by low-wage slave shops. Let’s help put Americans back to work and forget about Congress’s little anti-American scams.
The concept is good and I people like Tim O reilly are supporting this start up Visa.
Would VC invest in a idea and team that is so far only hoping that once they fund it , they would come to US ?
This is not just about VC investing in a team who would move to US after they get funding. I think it is going to be more applicable to ppl who are in already in US and would like to start a company but can’t because of the visa issues. I think they are the ones who this will help
How are they here if they have visa issues. If they have visa issue, they should be put on the first plane back to their home country.
‘visa issues’ doesn’t mean ‘illegal’, it means ‘I can’t sleep at night because the visa I am on is running out and I can’t self-sponsor myself to extend it, hence I will have to leave my startup, fire my employees and see my dream of entrepreneurial glory die of administrative death after days and nights and days and nights again of hard, hard work leading to nothing. Burn, burn, brief seed round! Life is but a walking shadow, a poor actor that struts an hour upon the scene and then is no more, etc. etc. ad lib.’
Odd. When unemployed American citizens need that type of help there are no proposals. Just anti-American frauds like Vivek Wadhaw running them down…
Why not make something “applicable” to out of work Americans who could use a similar program? Remember that Indians came to the US to leech off of American expertise and knowledge (do a background check on the “real” Vivek Wadhaw), why not give out of work Americans a break like you are clamoring for Indians to do? I for one cannot think of any software products that come from India that I can use (and neither can you). Why not come up with an “American entrepreur program” to help put Americans back to work, who have lost their jobs to the Indian H-1B disaster, as start up entrepreneurs themselves? And don’t pull a Wadhwa and say that Indians are more intelligent than Americans; after the huge disaster that Indians have caused to the American economy, we all know that isn’t true…
I was in Los Angeles for 5 years under an H1B visa and the company i was working for went down and i needed to find another company to hire me in 1 week, and pay more than 3k for me to stay. I couldn’t find one and was forced to come back in France … I spent more than 10k (visas, lawyers fees, travels) just to stay in the US AND pay my taxes… Immigration really sucksss..
I’m with you on that. The company I worked for in Canada got purchased by a US company. I had to get an H1-B visa to come to the US to work on the software I’d created in Canada. It’s expensive, takes FAR too long, and seems intent on keeping out people who can speak the language, earn a living and add to the community.
Your point about the failure of a company after five years illustrates the shortcoming of the Startup Visa idea – what happens if the VC-backed entrepreneur fails (as we’re told most will)? Do the VCs have to post a bond to cover the immediate deportation of the failed entrepreneur?
Well if no one wanted to hire you, you must have sucked – like most immigrants looking for the IT gravy train in the U.S. You people are morons, can’t do the work, collapse all the companies, suck out all our VC, and then leave. You lost $10K? How much money did you make all the time you were working here? How much money did you send home?
It’s not as if he wouldn’t have been paid back in France either, you moron. Ever heard of the concept of opportunity cost?
Dude, coming back to France from US is not a tragedy. Tragedy is coming back to Uganda (or to Ukraine).
Actually it’s probably in the best long term interest of the US that other countries benefit from their entrepreneurs building successful businesses at home – eventually leading to greater stability and freedom around the world.
Why relocate talented entrepreneurs from Bangalore to SF when, as you point out, it’s not necessary today?
For over 200 years the US has not had trouble producing innovative startups / companies without a startup visa.
i’m not against having entrepreneurs return to their own countries (or others), but neither should we DISincentivize anyone from coming to the US if they have initiative & capital.
other countries have smart immigration programs for entrepreneurs; we should too. right now, ours isn’t smart.
re: “for over 200 years…” — um, i’d say most of our success has been based on having *progressive* immigration policies, which we are currently not keeping up with.
we are a country of immigrants. we are a country of entrepreneurs. we should support immigrant entrepreneurs, both inside and outside the US.
The “200 years” is not true – you’ve starter limiting immigration in the past 100 (or even less) years.
For example:
Jack Tramiel was a polish Jew that left after the WW II and started the Commodore
Also, Steve Wozniak has a polish heritage.
So – if getting visa was actually as hard 200 years ago as it is today, Commodore and Apple wouldn’t be the same. If they were at all.
It is critical that this founders visa will also include a permission for the spouse to work here. The salary is very low during the first years of start-up, and since the founders need to live in very expensive urban areas the cost of living can not sustain with just one worker in the family.
Not just founders. I’m here on an O-1 visa, but my wife can’t work without a sponsor. That makes life here difficult and is a reason many of our friends left or didn’t come in the first place. In general I think the US could be a bit easier with people who are coming in legally.
I’m british, but gained an E2 (treaty investor) visa for my US startup. It took me nearly a year of paperwork before I could even move to the US. Paradoxically if we had raised VC to grow the company that would have diluted ownership such that I would have had to leave the country (and close the company).
In contrast, I started a company in japan about 4 years ago. Things run a *lot* smoother here… they even have a section dedicated to helping foreigners at my local town-hall.
Overall it seems more practical to keep ownership overseas and just visit the US for inspiration!
Japan is famously anti-immigrant. It’s very difficult to start a biz there if you are a foreigner. In fact, Japan just did what the U.S. should have done a long time ago: kicked out all the foreign workers.
I came to the US with a L-1 visa to manage a consulting company.
After 5 years, my visa was about to expire so I decided to start a company with $100k of my own savings and a $100k line of credit then applied for a E-2 treaty investor visa, having $500K/annual revenue, customer contracts and 3 full-time employees all american citizens. My attorneys presented the case and the visa was denied at the US consulate because I couldn’t demonstrate ties with my home country, which is stupid since I was living overseas for more than 10 years.
After this hassle and after spending more than $30K in attorneys fees, travel, etc. I decided to move the HQ of my company from the US to an off-shore location. Now I’m saving substantial amount in corp taxes, expenses, etc. Good bye America!
thats pretty neat … now i only need a great startup idea…hmmm
You should partner up with Momar and invent a browser that allows people to commute to work.
Ordy baby///take out ur head out of ur a$$
Adnann Badr you are your stupid I done want to partner with you the purpose of partnership is to benefit from each other why would I want to partner with you if you onely pull me down you need to go back to the slum of india maybe you become lucky and be slum pig millionaire.
@dave….bull’s eye loop hole…but then the originators of this idea are thinking of the welfare of US( patriots??) and not about welfare of the crooks from Bangalore.. aren’t they?
What problem are we solving here?
How many NEW companies get backing from accredited investors? Maybe tens, or low hundreds per year?
If immigrants are starting 30% of the start-ups, then we are solving a problem for what – 50 people?
And even these people will have hard time getting VC money before Angel investors – which are not accredited investors. So it seems all too narrow. I just can’t see how this will get bright minds over here.
How many of the immigrant startups are profitable beyond living off VC money?
Vivek’s claims of 25% are started by foreigners producing $52 billion a year is a sham: the IT sector in the U.S. is $1.25 trillion. With those numbers, the $52 billion amounts to a mere 5% of America’s IT production.
Why are we throwing 25% of our VC capital down a rathole that only produces 5% of the output? That’s an incredibly *inefficient* allocation of capital.
The reality is most immigrants are living off the VC money, but not producing anything, nor making a profit.
the reality is, you have no data to support this assertion whatsover.
on the other hand, TechCrunch Trends would indicate otherwise:
http://trends.t...gration-reform/
come up with your own data, or STFU.
There is no need to change immigration law. EB-5 works just fine. In fact, we should raise the minimum investment to be US$10 M (considering the falling dollars). We do not need foreigners pretending to be entrepreneurs trying to enter this country on priority basis where millions of other foreigners are waiting in line. If these entrepreneurs are enterprising enough they will find the US$1 M to start business here. Besides, the US needs capital influx, not human influx. We have enough people in this country already. Soon, there would not be enough resources for Americans here if we keep bringing in marginal people. There are plenty of American entrepreneurs trying startups and hiring people. It is not that there is no American trying. We just have to generate ideas and innovate.
Trying not to feed a troll, but I think you really might believe all that you say.
The EB-5 doesn’t work for Entrepreneurs even if they raise $10M they need to structure themselves as investors which cannot be done in Venture backed firms.
If your point is that the U.S. doesn’t need Entrepreneurs (Human Influx) and just Capital influx, a contributing factor to the Credit crisis is the easily available credit from China.
I agree it is not that there is no American trying to start companies, but would you rather that great ideas fall by the way-side just to keep this a closed system?
According to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants make up only 11.7% of the U.S. population, but have started one in four of all U.S. public companies that have been venture-backed over the past 15 years, including Intel, Google, Yahoo!, Sun and eBay.
Source: http://www.forb...repreneurs.html
A contributing factor to the credit crisis is that NRIs send $45 billion a year home every year. Over a decade that’s $450 BILLION (half a trillion) dollars in capital SUCKED out of the American banking system.
There was no credit crisis before the mass invasion of guest workers from India. (Nor was there a housing crisis, or any other crisis). In fact, before the invasion, the U.S. economy was booming.
Why continue to import people who have failed to perform? In another other setting they would get fired and sent packing.
Intel was not founded by immigrants. It was founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore long before Indians got here. Go read some history.
Google had an American co-founder, Larry Page, and Sergei Brin emigrated to the U.S at age 6, grew up here, and was educated here.
Yahoo! had an American co-founder (David Filo), and Jerry Yang emigrated here from Taiwan at age of 3, grew up here, and was educated here.
Sun was founded by Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Andy Bechtolstein, and Vinod Kohsla. Sun’s CEO for 25 years was McNealy. Solaris was architected by Bill Joy. Sunw as taken over by Indian guest workers in 2000 who kicked all the Americans out. They cleaned the company out and now it’s losing $150 million a month. They are selling it off to Oracle in order for India, Inc. to avoid the embarassment of having to close Sun’s doors while being run by Indians. eBay was founded by a French guy, not an Indian.
Want to go down the list of all the companies DESTROYED by Indian immigrants?
Bell Labs (Arun Netravalli)
PeopleSoft (Same fate as Sun)
Quark (Alukah Kamar)
Boeing (failed HCL 787 software)
MIT (closed Media Lab Asia due to faked invoices in India)
Microsoft (Vista is a joke, stock went from $110 to $25 and dropping)
AIG (outsourced to Wipro)
GM (Booming in 2006 until outsourcing to Wipro, bankrupt 3 years later)
ComAir (100% Indian IT staff caused 12/25/05 nationwide airport shutdown when they used a short int instead of a log int)
D.C. Metro crash (taken over by ‘Indian engineers’).
Now Adobe (CS4 is a disaster, no one wants it)
NASA (2 failed Mars missions because imported ’scientists’ calculated burn trajectories in metric system instead of English system – $400 million up in smoke)
The list goes on and on and on. Everything brilliant India labor touches dies.
Please help me Mr. American programmer – please train me. “Oh, ok”.
Are you also saying that Google is doomed to fail eventually? There is also a huge proportion of Indians all over Google branches in the US.
Needless to say, the situation at Yahoo! is obvious.
Situation at Yahoo? You mean the fact that it was founded by David Yang? He may have immigrant roots, but he’s not an immigrant. At least not in the sense that makes most of us traditional Americans disgusted. The image that comes to mind when the typical Traditional American thinks “immigrant” is a dark brown dude with high rise slacks, a mustache, greasy, stringy hair, and a tech-support Indian accent. Or the image may be a couple of women in traditional hindi clothes hunched over speaking loudly in a foreign tounge.
@truman: i strongly think that Mr Visitor meant about the large Indian population at Yahoo! and not about who founded it. Just go to the Sunnyvale Yahoo! branch at lunch time and you can see your dark brown dudes everywhere. I’m still wondering how and where do these massive population of dark brown dudes come from.
And proud of it.
Wow! This is quite an indictment on the Indians. Sad to say, stupid Americans are slow to catch on. There is a saying, “You cannot fool all the people all the time.”
“Let’s get this straight” is right because the US government is not that extremely stupid anyway. That’s why you see so many Indian driving cabs when they are awaken from the delusion that they can no longer achieve the American dream
This is because somehow they feel ashamed to go back to face their caste-oriented society in India.
Look at the cab drivers in New York, San Mateo, Redwood City, Fremont. So at least driving cabs is much more honorable.
We are slow because we want to. We can catch up anytime we want to.
HELL YEAH! It’s about time someone come up with such a great idea! The bureaucracy can kill any great dead and dreams…Although I think you have forgotten about E-2 visa, which is I think the most approachable for startup founders from abroad US – you still need an investment – but it’s not defined – it only must be “substantial” and sufficient enough to support this business. But still, it’s no easy life…
The E-Visa is only applicable to a small subset of users who fall under a umbrella of a “treaty country” of the U.S. not for most countries.
And yes, it requires a substantial investment which no seed stage company could possibly raise. So this is only a likely solution for something you’ve already started and grown which is technically illegal in the U.S. till you get the E-2 Visa.
Hang on a sec, I have a call from Catch-22.
Ben makes a great point here. Many visas (like the infamous H1-B) do not allow your spouse to engage in any paid work. This can make the already difficult start-up life even more complicated financially. Not to mention the spouse’s feeling of being useless.
To people who think letting foreign entrepreneurs come to the US is against the US’ benefit. A Startup Visa would help bring ‘brains’ to America and could only accelerate the pace of innovation to keep the US competitive.
It’s a very good idea but Visas are so complex to deal with that it definitely needs to be highly thought-through.
1) Getting VC funded is already hard enough.
2) VC funded… that’s an oxymoron
3) It’s easier to enter heaven then to get VC funded.
p.s. Love the Startup Visa initiative tho’.
we should not prohibit any thing, when are people going to realize that to make this economy better or to get more entrepreneurs to start more companies we need to remove regulations as much as possible, and then open up the market for almost any one to come to the US and start a company. I see in the comments and all around the web the same arguments “lets add this law and that law” why dont we just remove laws like sarbane oxley, let talented immigrants come to the US and make it super easy to start something, thats why I came to the US and so many before me and now, the “idea” of starting something with such ease is kind of gone. trust me I came from Europe and israel and its VERY hard to start something there and unfortunately Obama is turning the US into something more like France
“and then open up the market for almost any one to come to the US”
The U.S would have a population of about 900,000,000 by the year 2025, and the existing American Middle Class would be almost completely displaced. Is that what you want? Do you know how many people in India and China would love to reside in the U.S.?
We opened up the market in 1998 and 2000 by increasing the visa caps into the 100,000’s of thousands. From 1998 to 2003 1.1 million Indian guest workers came in on H-1B. Millions more came in on L-1. And what has been the result of all this “opening up”? The biggest recession in 70 years. Economic disaster. 14 millions jobs lost.
Americans have had enough of “opening up”. You had you chance, you didn’t perform, now it’s time for you to all go home. You’re fired!
Indians just want into the U.S. to clean out our wealth and try to recover money they think Britain stole from them. It’s all a giant con. Any more “opening up” and America will die.
Name one new company or product any of those “talented immigrants” have created in the past 10 years. Hotmail doesn’t count. Nor does the Pentium. Any other great inventions?
Did I mention Apple hires mostly American labor and Apple is booming? Microsoft employs 30,000 H-1Bs. Apple employs a mere 1,308. Which company’s stock do you prefer?
There are 600,000,000 people who defecate in the open in India. Do we want to turn America into one big toilet just like India is?
They just want to come here for the $. They don’t create or innovate jack.
eBay, Yahoo, Google.
wow that was the most ignorant comment i have ever read no offense,people are real jokes they try to find every reason possible to point fingers at why the economy is bad, i didnt know ppl took it as far as u did to blame immigrants and indians for it. wow i am in shock.
Hi,
I am a student in CS and am just about to complete my Bachelors. I am working on my startup and the Visa issue is definitely something that is bothering me because I do not know how things will play out.
Am glad to see that there are some people trying to help people like me.
Cheers
I am not an immigration lawyer but I think they already have something similar. The O “extra-ordinary ability” visas and E1/ E2 “Treaty investor” visas (not to be confused with EB1 or EB2 “employment-based” green cards).
But the problem is that those visa do not have “intent to immigrate” provisions like the H1-B does. That means someone on a E1/E2 visa cannot file for a green-card while staying in the US. That’s a hassle. So the way someone might go about this is to first get here on a non-immigrant multiple entry E1/ E2 (assuming you have at least $100k* in capital). Then build up the business for a few years and get 500k to 1million $$ in investment equity (500k if your business is in a specially designated area) and employ at least 10 citizens. If you can swing that, then you can file a EB-5 investor green card (explained in the article), which you will get in 2 years. You may have to exit and re-enter the country to switch from a E1/2 visa status to a EB-5 status mode.
Complicated. But doable.
*Say if you do not have your own $100k+ investment capital but you are budding entrepreneur in Bangalore or Beijing and can get a venture capital to back you up then you could probably still get here on a O/E visa. But you would be dependent on the Venture Capital firm to maintain your visa status, until you can file your own afore-mentioned EB-5 investor green card.
Again I am not a lawyer. But based on what I know from my own experience to immigrating here, its really cumbersome but possible within the framework of existing immigration laws. I am a bit surprised the author of this initiative did not consult a good immigration lawyer before starting all this.
thanks for the info… my understanding of both O visa and E1/E2 visas are that they are conditional based on either 1) special experience & skills (O visa), and/or 2) country of origin (E1/E2… depends on which country whether we have treaty).
while both of these are good options if you qualify, they may not be available to all entrepreneurs / all countries, and are still based on subjective / idiosyncratic opinions by bureaucrats at INS, rather than basic capital investment commitments by investors.
in other words, these visa are great to have AFTER you have already obtained them, but they are not predictable / available to everyone.
on the other hand, our proposal to modify the EB-5 visa would have a much more straightforward process & predictability based on investor commitments, not bureaucratic approval (we hope).
all that aside, appreciate the info and i agree O visa is an excellent option for those who can get it, as are E1/E2 in certain situations.
Dave, you make some excellent points. You are certainly right that having a formal StartUp Visa/ Green Card through the EB-5 program would be a much much better alternative to what we have now.
You are also right that E is country specific (in fact someone pointed out on a different website that India is not included in the E treaty). And even if they did, as “shiny” said you only have a 21 month viability period with the E visa (I did not know this part – good info).
But Congress moves at glacial speeds. The only thing that really works with Congress when it comes to passing new legislation, is the amount of lobbying network + money and through it, influence you can muster. Unfortunately vast amounts of public support is not always enough. And Silicon Valley has yet to earn as successful a track record as, say the Energy, Medical or Telecom industries.
It’s a great idea. But I think you guys may end up waiting a long time. Despite the merits of the core idea, I think you guys are underestimating the amount of protectionist/ anti-globalization sentiment out there that can potentially de-track any idea with the slightest hint of the concept of “immigration” or “foreign”. Never mind how beneficial it might be in the long term. This is specially true at volatile economic times such as this. The polarizing political climate doesn’t help things either. All I am saying is that, I wish you guys good luck, but if you want to make this a reality, you guys would need to get a lot more organized and probably spend a lot more lobbying money than you are prepared to spend now.
In the meantime, bringing international entrepreneurial talent over to Vancouver or Toronto and jump-starting these ventures from there would be more practical. Microsoft is already doing this. I think US multinationals are realizing that in lieu of congressional inaction, Canada-sourcing is more realistic for the next 5 to 10 years. It’s only a matter of time before a “critical-mass” number of VCs start Canada sourcing, given Canada’s geographical, cultural and temporal proximity to us and its friendlier immigration laws (for instance Alberta fast tracks Canadian green cards for existing H1-B holders – the idea being: if you are good enough for US, you are good enough for us; they also have various flavors of visas close to our EB-5, but the minimum cap is between 100k-300k USD ). So the more time our Congress wastes, the more we fall behind in the race for global talent.
Sorry for rambling on.
i agree congress doesn’t usually fast-track anything.
that said, we are currently in a great environment to get things done, to wit:
1) the Obama administration has made immigration reform a top priority
2) Congress is considering immigration legislation in Q1/09, and is admin-friendly on these issues
3) the current economic environment is providing leverage to get policy change done
4) the Startup Visa is pro-job creation, and initial support is running above 80% according to this poll, and above 90% according to 2Gov.org
5) we have heard positive feedback from both sides of the aisle about getting it done
in summary, there’s no better time to get this to happen. we hope to get a basic bill passed in Q1, and a change in policy implemented before end of 2010.
Dave, my friend, I wish I still had your kind of optimism. I would love to be wrong about this: I too think the Dems will bring up CIR in Q 1 or 2, but as usual, chicken out by the politics of a congressional election year. In a perfect world, politicians would be honest and not play with the future of 12m lives, but, I suspect the Dems would want to keep using the Latino voting block as a hedge against republican gains. So the longer CIR stalls, the better it is for both parties’ electoral political math.
I think you are right that the the overall CIR votes are in the bag, but I also think the political and economic seas of 2011 ought to be much calmer. And even if something like CIR passes next year, the election year politics will cause a lot of distortions to a lot of good components of a potential CIR bill (ref. 2006 CIR failed by 1 senate vote and “death panels v.s. ‘end-of-life consultation”). Although I wouldn’t categorize the Startup visa as something that can get too distorted because there are other stuff that’s far more controversial.
In any case, your biggest problem with this bill is that Congress, DOS and USCIS will still want a E2 or EB-5 like 2 years or so viability period (instead of giving out indefinite-duration visas). And it’s not a huge stretch to say that a lot startups take 10+ years to stand on their own feet. So it’s difficult.
This may be why it will be hard to escape DOS / USCIS’s “bureaucratic interpretations/ inertia”. I know it’s a start-up visa but from a immigration law perspective it will get treated as a conditional employment green-card (specially if you back-door through EB-5). And being so, it will face many of the pitfalls of existing employment green card programs. Case in point:
a) This EB-5 bill that you want to integrate into, was actually going to sunset (”expire” in Congress-speak) this very week if Congress did not jam-pack it into a boring DHS appropriations bill at the last minute. This bill is now going to the president’s desk and now set to sunset in 2012. Point is, it came very close to dying this year. So we will see if Congress will renew this again in 2 years…
b) the last really major employment immigration legislation was passed before Clinton left office: American Competitiveness for 21st Century (aka AC21). A major intention of this bill was to let people whose employment based green cards, after reaching the final stages are still pending for over 6 months – to let these people easily change jobs from the original green card sponsoring employer so that they can be independent and not get taken advantage of. But even after almost 10 years, there hasn’t been official USCIS policy changes but rather weak inter-office memos to facilitate this legislation. And even these memos apparently aren’t that well circulated internally. As a result: a lot of field immigration officers still don’t know about this implemented legislation and have mishandled a lot of green card applications over the last few year. So despite the original intentions of the bill, a significant number of IT people are still getting stuck in the employment green card pipeline for 8 to 10 years.
Bringing global business talent over to a country that epitomizes free market, should not be this “harrowing” (to borrow a word from one of the Copenhagen Olympics committee members who voted against Chicago 2016).
Nice idea, but how do you keep this from being exploited from the same outfits getting caught now for setting up dummy companies and charging immigrants to get them VISA’s?
Seems like this would just make it easier for the system to be exploited.
While this idea itself is brilliant, making the whole immigration system move toward this goal is the touch job.
Just imagine how many H1-B slaves nowadays will rush toward this, and how many carnivores in the Immigration ecosystem will be crying over their lost interest – be it immigration lawyers, or some, if not many, companies expecting their H1-B workers to stay 1 year before they can even start their green card process.
Again, this is a brilliant idea, and good luck dealing with those who’re now sipping on the neck of H1-B workers.
agreed, but getting consensus around H1-B reform is much harder.
the StartupVisa movement & EB-5 visa reform is straightforward, needs no new allocation, and is pro-job creation (on both sides of the aisle).
if broader immigration reform happens thats great, but regardless this specific issue is a win-win-win for all parties involved (jobs for us citizens, visas for immigrant founders, economic output & innovation for US and everyone else).
Why not allow unemployed American citizens to compete for startup capital as well?
they already do. we’re not preventing US citizens from getting startup funding.
however, we ARE preventing non-US citizens from doing so.
either/both are helpful in job creation domestically.
No offense, but I see how Hispanic lobby in Congress pushes Immigration Reform and Indian Lobby in Silicon Valley pushing H1B etc visa reform in an Internet media. What are the arguments? Nobody will work for $7 per hour (Hispanic), we do not have enough qualified workers here in US (India) let us invite some smart guys from abroad. This shit does not make sense at all. First of all, cut the amount of $7 per hour workers by 95% and the percentage of employers willing to pay $15 for the same job will increase drastically. Second, I have MS degree in CS and more than 10 years of experience as Java/C++/Oracle server – side developer. I was out of job for 7 months and finally found position last week. I have had several offers which I turned them down because of a very low pay (all of them in sub $60 per hour, some of them in low 40s) Do not say me that there is a shortage of IT workers in Silicon Valley. Probably, there is a shortage of workers willing to accept $40 per hour offers.
I am Green Card holder but when I came to this country, $100 per hour offer was not considered as too generous one.
Indians destroy everything they touch. Indians have been running SV for 10 years and the CA state econ is in the worst shape in 70 years.
You didn’t perform – you’re FIRED!
Now get out and stay out.
don’t feed the trolls
Hey, Chris Paduan, why are you posting under a different name now? Also, the fact that you are unemployed is not because some indian or asian took your job, it’s because you spend the whole goddamn day posting xenophobic bullshit on a website.
With all this “greatness” that tech crunch wants you to think, it also is true that if we allow this to happen, these “foreigners” will bring over their famlies on visa’s and basically give them the jobs tech crunch is saying they’ll create…
Not to mention, these same fools will be sending their income back overseas, not into the American economy.
I say fuck it. No way should they be allowed in here. Keep the borders closed. It opens way too many loop holes to allow for even more illegal immigrants (or immigrants that will just push us more and more to over-populated areas).
In India there are LAWS on the books making it illegal to hire white people there.
Why should we have the same laws against Indians here? Especially seeing the absolute havoc they have wreaked on our economy in the past 10 years.
The party’s over – deport them all now before there is no American economy left at all.
Uh, man – immigrants come not just from India. People from more civilised countries (european) have also problems to get to U.S., while they speak the language, and have open borders themselves.
you mean more developed?
I would assume for now that your English’s screwed..
Probably less expensive for the VCs to move to the countries these entrepreneurs live in now and fund them there. After all, the Internet is the great leveler as far as playing fields go, no?
Is the issue funding startups (with an expectation of return), or bringing people to the US?
already happening, and isn’t an either / or.
that said, other countries laws are different, and the majority of tech venture capital operates here in the US in Northern California (& other regions) under US corp law.
it’s possible but more challenging for US VCs to invest in non-US companies.
regardless, both options should be available. right now we’re limiting our options with current immigration policy for non-US founders.
Isn’t it just easier to just invest overseas?
not for US-based VCs, which is a large % of the VC industry.
(disclosure: and i am one)
Great initiative! There are lot of people with good ideas but lack of money, guidance, and support.
Oh, yeah, they all want to start businesses. Import businesses. Human import businesses, a.k.a. bodyshops. To bring in as many of their countrymen as they can find plane tickets for. Sure they’ll hire Americans. Tata build centers in Buffalo and Cinncinatti and promised to do that. How many got hired? Indian companies keep saying that they hire Americans too, but we almost never see it happen. Sure they can have their startup visa here – just as soon as we get treated the same over there: allowed to come in by the millions, dominate entire industries, and bring in our families and friends. I’ll bet Walmart wishes they’d been given a startup visa. What they got was something different, you bet.
This is a TAKEOVER, not immigration.
Why is it that INDIA is the one ASKING for more H-1Bs – and not Americans or Congress asking for them?
This is all driven by India’s need for American jobs and money, not by an need for “talent”. Americans who created IT are the most talented in the world. Put them back to work and the American economy will recover REAL fast.
DEPORT! DEPORT! DEPORT!
Anyone can START a business. Anyone can come here from Asia with a biz plan in hand, get VC money, and START a company. How many of those startups are still in business and profitable 5 years later? That’s what matters. I can’t count the number of foreign-run startups I’ve seen fail. One I worked at, Caymas, had an Indian CEO, a French Dir. of Dev (Pierre Rafiq), and a Chinese tech lead (Jeff Kaan). They had funding for 5 years. The week the funding ran out, the company folded. Nearly 100% of their programming staff was from India, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, you name it. They were all clueless. What matters is a PROVEN track record of business success. Why aren’t we importing successful Japanese business people? Why only those from the 3rd world? I’ll tell you why: it’s international socialism. America has too much, have to give some of it to the lazy 3rd world. These people are a total disaster for America’s economy. They live off VC funding, produce nothing, send all the money home, and the companies all collapse. No wonder CA is such a wreck. That’s OUR capital that could have been used to create jobs for Americans HERE who would have made the companies boom. STOP SHIPPING AMERICA’S CAPITAL OUT OF THE U.S.
frog in a well
after printing capital and selling paper to the world for more than 6 decades, why worry about capital flowing out ?
America can print more
Man, did you count the companies that didn’t fail? Hotmail, Google, Apple…
Hotmail was based on several Univerity web-based email systems. I know, I used one at MSU long before Hotmail appeared. No innovation there! Google and yahoo were both American citizen started. You cannot name one Indian software product or business that Americans use. NOT ONE!
What a phenomenal idea!
If they get VC money, that means they have a good plan and good VISION.
Funding, either VC or personal, should be a strict criteria in issuing visas. We don’t want code monkeys running around Silicon Valley spamming people’s offices for jobs.
Most Indians and Chinese developers are just code monkeys, I learned it the hard way.
And they’re not even good code monkeys at that.
Where is the Indian operating system?
Name one desktop application anyone has heard of written by an Indian or Chinese debeloper. They don’t exist.
they don’t exist..because all the good monkeys are working for american cos.. churning out code for benefit of american economy.
Bob!;
You are forgot the most key and basic innovation in the world. Did you remember that? The value “zero” is invented by Indian and without that there is no computer, no currency and no calculation and no space, no company and no scinece at all. You are talking about the dollars moved to India, but US is the country which will do arms business and which will put the fire between small countries and sell their arms. Who asked you to do the war on Iraq and what you gain. Unfortunately you lost every thing and the american government don’t have money to maintain roads and libraries. The US consulate not giving free visas but selling for money and selling green cards…all for money.
Yes, There may be good guys in america who founded nice companies and nice products but without indian team there is no successful company in USA. Cross check every company and product you guys founded, to be frankly speaking, americans funded for indian ideas.
How do you feel if india collects money from the world when you guys write every “zero” ?
Mind blocked!!! isn’t it.
Check the history and come back.
Without Indians and other immigrants there is no america, USA will be some other country like kenya ,uganda…etc.
Liberalize the visa rules and get more indians and lead more products…. Thx
Crap without Indians US will be like Kenya or Uganda?
Believe me dude Kenyans and Ugandans live a far much better life than many indians. How many poor people does India have? Slums?
I have been to Kenya and Uganda and India. Anyway my point is Kenya and Uganda are way better than India in many areas.
Also they don’t have that crap caste system that India has.
I’m just doing that. An entrepreneur with E2 visa with family backed fund, starting a startup in the united states. I have only 2 years to grow enough to hire several ‘employees’ and prove it, which I find for many startups, could be hard. If I cannot make enough revenue to hire several employees in the next 12 months, I would have to leave the country.
Startup visa sounds good but I don’t think venture backing should be mandatory. I think basically the system should give more freedom for entrepreneurs to run the business. Currently I’m supposed to ‘hire’ people to continue my visa status. So it doesn’t matter how much I hire independent contractors or use other services, which these days a lot of what I do, since a lot of operation can be oursourced to outside of the company.
And another thing is in general startups needs time to create products and grow. I would advise, if someone is thinking of using E2 to create a startup, to create a product abroad or/and before you get the visa. Once you get the visa, 2 years-actually it is more like 21 months considering paperwork due and the process of visa renewal process being deducted from 24 months period- is relatively short period, and you might just not have enough time to take your product off the ground.
doesn’t have to be just VCs, accredited US investors with minimum capital / experience could also work.
people want to come and stay in US… give me a break..
Please check the statistics on number of H1B still available this year.???
and for the same reason of this useless visa/funding. there are lot of funds that are funding entrepreneurs outside of US.
It is just a matter of time when one of those funded company becomes success and more will follow.
As of today , I personally know of 3 people gone back to India to start their own.. The reason they went back…H1B sucks..cannot start here.
I am not sure if there is any statistics on number of such people going back.
So who is loosing?? US economy.
Startupvisa is a good idea, but as mentioned by others, has lot of drawbacks.. but needs to be worked out.. isn’t this we pay our taxes so that politicians and govt officials put their brains together to come up with proper laws and reforms???
not a good idea. Most startup fail so benefit to economy is questionable. Plus from h1b experience, we know depending on someone to stay in u.s. essentially creates bonded labor. In this case, it will be VCs.
Beside it is cheaper(cost of living, R&D) to create startup companies outside u.s. then once it is ready to take off , open marketing/sales office in u.s. Many Euorpean/Israeli companies have done it successfully.
>>open marketing/sales office in u.s
Where does the profits go finally in this case .. out of US.
That’s fine. US has issued too much free money anyway.
Free money?? where and for what?
If just by printing more bills and handing it out is free money..then it is just free paper..
US is one of the countries with highest trade deficit. which just means it produces less than what it consumes.
somehow people are still living in era just after world warII when US had trade surplus and had dawned as world power.
Please get your economics correct..before assuming that US is giving out money free.
Anyway this is out of context for this discussion.
>>not a good idea. Most startup fail so benefit to
>>economy is questionable.
Yes, some fail, but others succeed. But the point is an initiative like this costs nothing to implement. If it churns out mediocre results or excessive fraud/abuse, it can be easily scrapped.
>> Plus from h1b experience, we know
>> depending on someone to stay in u.s.
>> essentially creates bonded labor.
>> In this case, it will be VCs.
ALL entrepreneurs are beholden to their investors, customers, etc.. The comparison to bonded H-1B labor (which I am against) is ludicrous. These aren’t entry-level engineers we’re talking about. Any entrepreneur worth his salt will negotiate a favorable deal with investors and avoid being shackled.
I am a non resident alien living outside of the USA. I own and operate several web businesses and employ contractors which are based in the USA. I don’t have a million dollars in cash and I have funded my businesses on my own. I have never asked for money nor do I wish to have any investors “help” me run my business.
I think the proposed visa is flawed because it assumes that you are a good entrpreneur only if you have an investor willing to put money in your ventures.
Right now america needs more JOBS, more TAX money, and more REVENUE for businesses and FAST!
I would create a visa for startups which would work in two steps:
STEP 1: You get entry for 90 days in which you have to:
1. Incorporate in the USA and have an EIS – this way the USA gets MORE TAXES .
2. Only employ american citizens – this way the USA creats MORE JOBS within the USA.
3. Only buy your equipment from american businesses- this way you are supporting american companies with the money you spend and giving businesses MORE REVENUE.
4. Must submit a deposit of $25,000 to the government- this is to keep out the time wasters.
STEP 2:
After the 90 days you have to submit all your reciepts and proof of employment and other proof that you are actually running a legitemate business and complying with points 1-3. If the government is convinced you are legit they extend youR visa for an additional 9 monthS and at the end of the year if your business is still running you get an extension for another year which after 3 years can be changed into a permenant residency.
now thats look likes a good workable sensible idea….which should be acceptable to all the parties..personally i hate those Indian entrepreneurs who leave their own people(poor, naked, defecating in the open) and who care about only generating more dollars for themselves and their kin…all those high flying brainy Indians should(must) stay back in INDIA and do smthing for their motherland. Ofcourse its very very tough, but its not impossible, u disloyal unpatriotic thieves( the Indian government subsidized ur education, with poor citizens hard earned blood money). Such Indians are a shame, and we dont want ur “nri remittances” which are probably being stashed in gold, mercedes, and real estate..
You can’t mandate patriotism with closed economies. That helps NO ONE and only exacerbates poverty and misery. Look at former East Germany — you couldn’t get people out of there fast enough when that wall came down 20 years ago. And India didn’t really start to grow until the government finally loosened its grip on the economy.
@warren…i agree its a double edged sword..but then instead of smart people immigrating…y can’t smart products and companies go out….that would be a better deal i suppose..
TS,
A very good workable idea..Something that is totally win-win..
@Adnaan
I more or less agree with you., But, at the end of the day, each one of us works for our own livelihood..Helping “the motherland” grow is more or less incidental..At least that is how it is in a globalized economy..
Common people follow precedents…its up to the “thinking” guys to setup that precedent..and its a sorry state that “globalization” most often than not refers to US/UK to the Indian techies…India is as much part of the globalization plateau as is the US, but we refuse to see it, (i am not included in that though). Do you think if an Indian techie comes up with a great idea like twitter, people from US would refuse using it,,,ban it??….no..i dont think so…
phew…thts acidic and idealistic..had to get it out of my system…….
How many bodyshops do we need that hire only cheap foreign workers? We don’t need another visa that will be abused at the expense of the American workforce. This is pure propaganda paid for by NASSCOM.
“If their venture doesn’t work out (a likely scenario), they can pack their bags and head back home. ”
I have a problem with this — who’s going to enforce this? Once they are in the country, immigrants are almost impossible to kick out.
The idea would be good, if this “go home” part would be enforcable. As it stands right now, people would just come, start a sham company which would fail within a month and then stay forever.
Hmm …. maybe better domestic enforcement of immigration policies? You know, those I-9 forms that all employers have to submit for their newly hired staff? Also, state and local officials really need to be held accountable to federal law. Any encounter by illegals with law enforcement, even something as minor as a traffic stop, should result in immediate deportation. And douchebag mayors who facilitate the existence of “sanctuary cities” like San Francisco need to be prosecuted to the FULLEST extent of the law. (This is a politically sensitive issue, I realize — I know respecting and obeying the rule of law is a fading concept to many.)
Don’t confuse immigration policy with immigration enforcement. Both are necessary for a successful system, but one should not play into the other.
simple people with startup visa cannot be employed legally..
so what happens they have to go back. and if they are those kind of people who would be ready to do illegal employment or menial jobs just for the heck of staying US, I really doubt they would get sponsorship from VC’s to get to US in the first place.
Mark Hendrickson, what are you smoking?
Most H-1B body shops are startups. They close down the old startups and open new ones like changing clothe if they find USCIS goes after them.
What is a startup? It is any wanna-be entrepreneur.
This type of visa would be either easily abused, or have so much restrictions that it would be unreal for an actual startup.
WRONG APPROACH TO VISA
The US needs to make it easy for foreign workers to get work visas. However, expecting someone from a foreign city (e.g., Bangalore) to land in Silicon Valley to start a company is a ludicrous idea. It takes a lot more than an innovative idea or product to start a company. Therefore the startup visa makes no sense. Making it easier to get h1-b visas to work in the US is a great idea.
Why not just let every Indian in without a visa? And if we are at it, why won’t be just become a colony of India?
While this sounds like an intriguing idea, I don’t believe it will have a broad appeal. After all, most entrepreneurs who raise venture capital overseas, do so to execute their ideas in their local market/country … not to come over to the US to build their startup. Besides, most such b-plans are focused on execution in environments with lower cost/higher quality of work force than what is available in the US. Finally, the overall cost of building a venture is perhaps the highest in the US, so why would VCs want to fund overseas entrepreneurs to come here?
i’ve met several entrepreneurs in both Asia & Europe who are interested in coming to the US, and have interest from both US & non-US investors.
Talent is everywhere. However, the large US market, access to capital, access to top universities & talent, and interaction with other large internet businesses makes the US (& specifically NorCal) a very desirable location.
as a startup investor myself, i’ve personally run across 2-3 companies in the past year that i would have considered investing in if i thought the founder(s) would be able to move to the US.
doesn’t mean in all cases it’s the right answer, but again we’re not mandating everyone use this option — just that it be an available one.
Overall, this is intriguing and a step in the right direction. But the real problems underlying the skilled immigration system has to do with artificial permanent residency caps. There is NO reason ANYONE in a free economy like the US should have to stay tied to a single employer in the same position at the same pay grade for the better part of a decade waiting for some bureaucrat to sign off on their green card. This is antithetical to the American Dream. A brief period of servitude with a respectable sponsoring employer (2-3 yrs tops) is acceptable and necessary to weed out the losers, but skilled immigrants need to be put on a path of becoming free agents as quickly as possible to avoid becoming mindless unproductive drones — or, worse still, go home to their countries of origin and become competitors.
Hello Tweeps ~
You know the current poll re: ‘Startup Visa’ is:
85% — Yes
15% — No
But, checking the above Comments, I would estimate that 65% (No) & 35% (Yes).
It’s an idea that looks wonderful on first blush, but, no considerations have been given to the statistic: Will the immigrants (assuming they are legal) will produce a Net Positive GDP effect with their startup business.
Let’s remember: Next year (2010), the Obama Admin. will begin presenting Immigration Reform concepts. I strongly believe that there will be NO FREE LUNCH in the future for Immigrants to the USA. If you compare Mexico, France, Switzerland to US immigration policies: they all require FLUENCY in the country’s official languages; they do not allow the uneducated, convicted criminals AND they require financial solvency & earning potential BEFORE their probationary periods of for 2, 3 & 5 yrs (respectively), and US citizenship can be acquired.
The US can no longer afford to bring in Net Negative GDP individuals! Look at the economies of CA, IL, FL & NY ~ they’re all on-the-brink of economic collapse due to the lack of financial prerequisites for US citizenship.
Let’s see a year from now how the concept of a “Startup Visa” flies ~ it won’t!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
so you’re suggesting the 2-1 ratio of trollish comments from 10-20 people should overshadow the 5-1 vote of over 1000 TechCrunch readers?
let me guess — you were working for the Kerry or McCain campaigns recently, weren’t you?
please don’t check your math & logic at the door, and don’t quit your day job.
Just a few questions to all the _natural born_ US citizens commenting here:
Tell me, based on what accomplishment on your behalf did you earn your privilege of being an US citizen? What personal achievement merits your US citizenship? Wouldn’t you agree that having been born a child to US parents is purely coincidental? You might equally (un)likely have been born to Chilean, Nigerian or Swedish parents, don’t you think?
Once you acknowledge that being an American is–in case of natural borns–a purely random result of a cosmic roll of the dice, do you still think that you somehow deserve your US citizenship _more_ than all those immigrants who are as qualified and productive as you but unlike you have to jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops, have to severe their family ties, have to live in uncertainty and fear of deportation for years while their green card
application is pending? Why is it those ambitious, tax-paying legal immigrants, who demand nothing more than equal rights and opportunities in rendering service to the American people, always have to justify themselves?
And even if some of them _are_ lazy and everything but model immigrants, on what moral grounds do you treat them differently than all those natural born US bums who can be drunk and idle all day long without ever having to fear being deported?
How about we start supporting all those who want to create innovation, jobs and tax revenue in the United States and stop subsidizing all those who drain the economy, _regardless_ of their citizenship status?
Unlike you, and EVERY SINGLE H-1B, L-1, and F-WTF from India, I served six years in the Marine Corps before getting my citizenship. And that was before they granted citizenship to vets.
You people are the lazy ones. All you want is gold, and to command a large dowry. You don’t serve in the military, you don’t serve in the police o fire departments, all you do is insult Americans and spread your caste-oriented culture of bigotry and nepotism everywhere you go.
NOW STFU, scab.
A US Citizenship is not some coveted diamond trophy that you are making it out to be..
To add to that, it is their country..Why and how can you demand your way in!
Yes, US is built on immigration and all that…But that cannot make them binding to take in each one of the 5.5 billion outside their borders!
I can’t stand this Anand guy. He reminds me of that Anjeli girl, the Smart Babes are Sexy Blog lady. Always has a comment that amounts to not much more than 2 cents.
This Anand is just like any other dark brown dude
American visa system is the worst system on the block. A guy goes to US after convincing the officer that he would return, and also submitting an affidavit etc but never returns. isnt the whole processs a mockery of things. US visa system is worse than that of afghanistan and sudan. Wakeup Senate and congress atleast come up with something to match sudan for a begining. YOur Visa officers are worse than first grade drop outs. 99 percent of the times f1 visa applicants proved what big fools americans could be. Your universities are worst than Government colleges in India. Canada is going to be the leader of the world in the near future. Good for canada they wil have a big supply of about 400 million cheap labor across the border. GOod to know only recently they have made strict enforcement of visa regulations at the border. HOpefully soon canada would require amieran citizens to have a visa as well..to stop illegal immigrant american citizens from crossing over..
“A guy goes to US after convincing the officer that he would return”
That is why it is called visa and not green card..
Anyway, that is how things work everywhere..To get a loan, you have to convince the bank that you don’t need one in the first place..
What a stupid comment. People like you are a waste of oxygen.
Hmm this will just get abused as the H1B has in a lot of cases unless as people say there are so many restrictions that mean it will be a nightmare to adminester.