
Show HN: H1B Valley – A gallery of successful immigrant founded startups - shsachdev
https://www.h1bvalley.com/
======
protomyth
I get what you are trying to accomplish, but this really isn't the problem
your opponents have with the H1B program.

From the H1B website[1]

 _The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise
obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by
authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not
otherwise authorized to work in the United States._

Now let's look at the top 10 companies that sponsor H1B visas:

    
    
      Deloitte & Touche               16,409
      Tata Consultancy Services       14,604
      Cognizant Technology Solutions  13,074
      infosys                         11,591
      IBM                              8,344
      Ernst & Young                    6,893
      Capgemini                        6,739
      Google                           6,656
      Tech Mahindra (Americas)         6,464
      Accenture                        6,381
    

Here is the problem. Only two of the companies on this list aren't body shops,
and IBM might actually be a body shop depending on which division is bring in
the H1B.

Immigrants are a good thing, but the continued deceptive practices used by
these companies to not hire people from the US is a problem. This is what your
opponents are going to focus on and push forward. Disney bringing in H1B
holders to replace workers, and the courts siding with Disney did not help the
immigration story in the US.

It doesn't matter what good former H1B holders did if your kid / spouse / you
got fired and replaced by cheaper H1B labor that you had to train to do your
job. If you don't solve that problem then they will ignore any "how good it
is" arguments.

1)
[https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b)

~~~
phenkdo
I too get what you are trying to accomplish. But the vast majority of anti-h1b
crowd doesn't have anything even close to the reasoned arguments and critique
you offered. The knee-jerk reaction is largely: h1b = cheap labor = takes away
"my job" => I need to bay for Indian blood. Just watch Lou Dobbs or his ilk...

Like with many things today, nuance is all but non-existent in this argument.

~~~
protomyth
Nuance does go out the window when you or yours lose the means to support a
family. You assessment that those people don't have a reasoned argument is not
correct. They are very emotional, but they are not wrong in their argument no
matter how many people make fun of them.

I stated the "knee jerk" reaction. It is H1B is being used in a manner
contrary to the law, this results in lower wage workers replacing domestic
workers via contracts with "body shops". Often the worker is forced to train
his/her replacement by holding severance over their heads.

Also, India is actually too expensive for some of these companies. They are
recruiting from other countries with lower standards of living. I know of at
least one Ag company that replaced workers with those from the Philippines
because India was too expensive.'

Their isn't a lot of room for nuance when these companies are breaking the law
but getting away with it.

~~~
phenkdo
"Nuance does go out the window when you or yours lose the means to support a
family. "

Maybe they shouldn't have been in this profession at all and find a different
line work. Jobs are not guarantees, you are not owed anything. If their job
got h1b-ed then it doesn't need to exist. It's the typical dare-i-say, [mostly
white american male] entitlement, that anytime they didn't get what they
wished for, and <ka-boom>, the world's ending, h1b is worse than corona + isis
combined! Welcome back to ground level folks.

"breaking the law" imho, that probably too strong a phrase. Sure - we can
argue about what that proportion is - but i think h1b recruits are - like most
things in life, normally distributed talent/salary wise. The bottom 2-3 sd
should never have been issued visas. True that, but with that comes the better
1-2 sigma that starts businesses, does research in Univs and businesses.

Now IBM et al might not be doing what _you_ like, but to accuse them of
completely illegal behavior is a stretch & half. There are never any
solutions, only trade-offs!

~~~
protomyth
Nope, if they are using H1B to replace workers in the same job they are
breaking the law. If you are writing your job description in such a way to
exclude American workers and make it specific to the H1B person you are
sponsoring, then you breaking the law. Read the actual enabling legislation.

"Maybe they shouldn't have been in this profession at all and find a different
line work."

Yeah, don't take up a profession if someone if using a government program
improperly to replace you. Victim blaming isn't a good look for advocates of
the H1B program.

~~~
phenkdo
I think the fundamental premise on which your arguments are based is flawed.

1\. Those jobs don't _belong_ to "American workers". "American workers" : _<
wink> <wink>_ now, don't we all know what that means?

2\. Said "american workers" have no guaranteed claims or rights to be employed
in those jobs. The business no more owes you that job, than you owing them to
work there. S/he is very welcome to find a different line of work, if they are
inconvenienced. Just because you don't like something, doesn't make it
illegal. Report fraud to the FBI/DOJ and Let the judicial system decide it.

3\. To the extent the machinations you describe happen, they are no different
from the VASTLY more prevalent resume padding, outright lies, outrageous
salary asks and general brattish behavior by many "American workers". Should
they be prosecuted too?

4\. "American IT workers" are already among the highest paid professionals and
have FULL + employment, and yet all they do is kvetch 24/7/365\. These
"victims" you describe, are trying to sell a bicycle - to put it mildly - for
the price of a Rolls Royce, while the customer needs a Honda Civic ! And like
every spoilt brat ever, throw a tantrum anytime they didn't get what they
wanted.

5\. If these american workers get off their entitlement high-horse, and stop
wallowing in this sea of self-pity, they would be aware how mismatched their
skills and compensation expectations are.

ps. i am a 3x entrepreneur, who used to believe in your ideas just as
strongly, but my startup experience has changed my views on this subject.

~~~
protomyth
_I think the fundamental premise on which your arguments are based is flawed._

We are talking about H1Bs and yes, those jobs belong to Americans first. Once
again, the stated goal of the program is _The intent of the H-1B provisions is
to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and
abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of
qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United
States._

You can make a Nation vs World argument on immigration and jobs, an argument
on if a company from a nation owes the people of that nation some allegiance,
but this is about H1B specifically and it is being abused. So, according to
the legislation that enables the H1B program those jobs are American first.

 _ps. i am a 3x entrepreneur, who used to believe in your ideas just as
strongly, but my startup experience has changed my views on this subject._

So you can profit now from it.

~~~
phenkdo
By and large your arguments are that of every entitled spoilt brat ever, who
wants mommy & daddy to come rescue them. Get over it! One way or another this
is going to happen, the workers you refer to are unemployable in every sense
of the word. If not h1b then offshoring or relocation of businesses.

America can't have the taxpayer keep bailing out these "American workers"
incompetence, lethargy and overriding entitlement. IMO these "American
workers" are trying to sell a bicycle without wheels, for the price of a
Rolls, and playing the "buy american" card. Ha! Now why didn't we think of
that before?

 _So you can profit now from it._

"the devil quoteth the scriptures" \- shakespeare

-xo

~~~
protomyth
I didn't know wanting the government to follow that actual law was _By and
large your arguments are that of every entitled spoilt brat ever, who wants
mommy & daddy to come rescue them._

------
spamizbad
It's not just the companies they build: H1Bs are my colleagues and mentors and
have made me, an American citizen, a better software engineer. I would not be
where I am today without their knowledge and guidance.

------
dbancajas
Some of the entries seem wrong? I looked at Razer Inc's founder and he never
did set foot in the USA as H1B, at least based on his wikipedia page. Was it
just incorporated in the USA but HQ was somewhere else? If so, this is
misleading. Also, H1-B does not allow you to found a startup. The path is
H1B->green card->startup?

~~~
shsachdev
Hey! Never meant to state that all these founders came here on an H1B; just
used that in the website name given what's been going on recently.

~~~
dgellow
That's very misleading...

~~~
akadeb
It's as misleading as mindgeek.com. It has nothing to do with minds or geeks
but a website that focusses primarily on internet pornography. OP found a
domain that fits the current political atmosphere for better SEO and went with
it. Sure it helps to add a note on the website that these aren't all founders
who came into the country on an H-1B.

~~~
dgellow
Not sure what's your point. Yes, other websites have misleading or deceptive
names. mindgeek.com maybe tries to hide their activities, I don't know the
company or the website, but if that's the case it's a different situation.

Something named H1B Valley that lists names of company founders in the US
makes it sound as if the H1B visa is what allowed them to come to the US, or
even what allowed them to create their company. That's misleading if done by
mistake, deceptive if intentional. They will surely have more traffic thanks
to this, that doesn't change the fact that it feels deceptive and somewhat
wrong to then learn that it _is not_ in fact about H1B visa.

~~~
akadeb
Right, I agree with that

------
coredog64
Been pondering this, but at root I think one disconnect is that H1B is very
much “A Tale of Two Cities”. If you work for FAAMNG or FinTech, your H1B
colleagues represent the spirit of the program: World-class engineering talent
being compensated appropriately.

If you’re outside that world it’s less cut and dry. Employers use H1B to drive
down wages. They have a hold over the employees and can sometimes mistreat
them. And then there’s the historical practice of body shops outright abusing
the visa in exact opposition to the intent.

I lay this at the feet of FAAMNG. Instead of sending the message that it was
an unmitigated good, they could have acknowledged the negatives and used their
position to lobby for reforms before we got here.

------
kolanos
My understanding of H-1Bs is that the basis of the visa is that you are
required to work for a U.S.-based employer. How does a H-1B holder get around
this restriction in founding a startup?

~~~
ponker
You are typically an employee of the startup that you create.

~~~
kolanos
Right, but you need to be sponsored by your employer to get the visa in the
first place. Not saying it can't be done, just unclear on how.

~~~
ponker
You can create the company from abroad. There’s no real additional process for
creating a company from abroad. The banking setup is the only thing that takes
longer.

------
jacobriis
A list of mostly European-origin people and almost exclusively European-origin
and Asian-origin people is not likely to be well received these days as
evidence that a US migration program is successful.

~~~
arxv33
Came here to say this. Current immigration policy is so broken that for
someone coming here with H1B to realistically qualify for green card, it takes
years of paperwork, and most Asian born employees have no realistic chance of
getting it anytime within 10yrs horizon. This makes it impractical to plan for
house, career and startup. I personally know some folks from India who have no
practical chance of getting it in their lifetime.

There was a bill to amend that so the country of birth based bias is removed.
The bill was opposed in bipartisan way. Dick Durbuin, one of the most
progressive senators and Ted Cruz one of the most right wing senator both were
on the same page on this issue. This tells you the current state of affairs in
our political climate on real immigration reform. Neither side really wants it
and wants to keep the status quo.

~~~
sangupta
Am in the wait queue for 10+ years. Came on L1 and moving to H1. Can't create
a startup due to legal challenges around visa (have idea and funding) - hope
something will be worked out.

------
vikramkr
Nice list. To really communicate the point that immigrants contribute to the
US economy, might be a good idea to include rough US employment numbers on the
image itself instead of when clicking into each one, since the bulk of the
rhetoric around immigration is "jobs" focused, especially US jobs (global jobs
might be seen as outsourcing/not relevant)

~~~
mtgp1000
A couple dozen billionaire immigrant founders says nothing about the overall
contributions (or costs) of immigrants to the economy.

~~~
verghese
This list is limited to H1B founders - the list of all immigrant founded
unicorns would be much larger. A comprehensive list of all startups (unicorn
or otherwise) founded by h1b holders could be a better indicator. Another way
to quantify contributions could be aggregate taxes paid by these individuals
but this data may not be available.

------
partingshots
Thank you for making this. It’s important to highlight the visibility of what
immigrants have contributed to America. One of the reasons why the United
States continues to be the powerhouse it is today is because of its continued
influx of highly talented and educated people coming into the country. To
block off this pipeline would be a mistake.

------
morpheuskafka
The name doesn't really make sense. H1-B visas are non-immigrant visas, and
their holders can only work for certain US-based employers. Of course, plenty
of people do go on to immigrate (through their H-1B employer or by other
means) and then start a business, or in some cases even use that as their
means of immigration, but the H1-B itself does not lead to new startups.

------
_pmf_
Oh, then you can just let them in as founders without first toiling away at
substandard rates in exploitive companies, right?

------
epanchin
I wonder if the move against H-1Bs is good for the rest of the world.

How much would Evernote be contributing to the Azerbaijan economy if Stepan
hadn’t left? Would London have more larger start ups?

~~~
harpratap
Entrepreneurs are just one side of the story, for a successful startup
churning city you need to have investors with risk appetite, constant flow of
talented students and workers accepting of new ideologies and be far away from
financial hubs. The last point is important because finance companies usually
attract the top students and employees because of their fat salaries, which
leave novel tech too little to work with. This is why cities like NY, London,
Tokyo will never as successful as SF when it comes to tech.

------
cmer
Great list! Two obvious misses: Tesla and Google.

~~~
kolanos
If you're referring to Elon Musk, he is not a Tesla founder. Tesla was founded
by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, both California born. Musk was an
early Tesla investor.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The founder flair is unimportant in this example. Musk rescued Tesla from poor
leadership and financial insolvency, enabling it to become the largest auto
maker by market cap [1]. This is not to dismiss the contributions of Martin
Eberhard and Mark Tarpon to Tesla's growth, but to recognize that at times a
transition is necessary for an org to continue to evolve and/or survive (when
this transition occurred, Tesla needed to rapidly shift from primarily R&D to
a sales focused organization to get revenue in the door).

Let’s not get hung up on the Valley signaling around the word “founder” as if
it's some sort of deity status. It's just a different amount of shares and
share class on the cap table. Steve Jobs was an Apple founder, but Gates
stepped in to bring Apple back from the brink with a $150MM investment [2].
Bill Gates doesn't have a "founder" title for Apple, but he was their savior.
As always, there is nuance.

TLDR It is valid to use Elon Musk as an example of a successful immigrant and
"the American dream", just not in the context of the H1B visa. Musk himself
has said he couldn’t have been wildly successful anywhere else.

[1] [https://electrek.co/2020/06/10/tesla-tsla-becomes-wolds-
most...](https://electrek.co/2020/06/10/tesla-tsla-becomes-wolds-most-
valuable-automaker-hits-1000-per-share/)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-
wh...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/29/steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-what-
happened-when-microsoft-saved-apple.html)

------
saganus
Pretty interesting.

Minor typo: I think it should be "Cloudflare" and not "Cloudfare" (note the
missing L).

------
TechBro8615
I’m confused. Admittedly, I’m not very educated on this topic. But aren’t H1B
visas used for employees? Why are founders using H1B visas to found a company
in the US?

Wouldn’t E-1 visas and investor visas be more relevant to the discussion of
people starting companies? Is Trump banning new issuances of those?

~~~
esotericimpl
In order to stay in the country usually a founder will work for the company as
a contractor. I know of several founders who technically work as a freelancer
for company A. while they run Company B.

Company A takes a chunk of equity for holding the visa.

~~~
pandaman
Just a heads up: there is no statute of limitations on immigration fraud for
the immigrants. If it's discovered at any time in the future all the
immigration benefits derived from the fraud will be rolled back and the
punishment (which usually includes a ban from entering the US) will be
administered. E.g. if they get a green card through AOS and then naturalize
and become citizens but their H1B is discovered to be fraudulent at some time
in the future then: AOS is invalid since it requires a valid status, then the
LPR (green card) is invalid since it's a result of an invalid AOS, then
naturalization is invalid since it requires a certain time of being an LPR. So
they are stripped of the US citizenship, deported and banned from entering the
country ever again.

