
Immigration is about talent, not costs - gabaix
https://www.aerofs.com/blog/immigration-is-about-talent-not-costs/
======
TheCoelacanth
For "real" technology companies like AeroFS, that use a small fraction of the
H-1B quota, it's about talent. For body shops like Infosys, WiPro, Tata, etc
that use up the vast majority of the H-1B visas it's absolutely about cost.

~~~
x0x0
Yuri is wrong. h1b is absolutely about costs -- unless they claim (a somewhat
fantastical claim) there is nobody in the US at all who could fit their needs.
A claim which is trivially untrue. Those people exist and could be hired. Why
isn't Yuri hiring them? Because of the price they demand.

In fact, the way you can tell this is bs and it is entirely about price is
AeroFS opened a canadian subsidiary! I wonder how much that cost. At a guess,
$30k? So apparently $30k is less than the premium required to pry engineers
out of dropbox or box.

Or god forbid, train someone.

~~~
pm90
_> Yuri is wrong. h1b is absolutely about costs -- unless they claim (a
somewhat fantastical claim) there is nobody in the US at all who could fit
their needs. A claim which is trivially untrue. Those people exist and could
be hired. Why isn't Yuri hiring them? Because of the price they demand._

Excuse me, he is just a guy with a company, not some demi-God who has access
to a list of all qualified people out there.

When people say: "Hey, there's talent in the US! Look hard and you will find
it!", you are kinda missing the circumstances under which he is operating.

First, the cost. Are you suggesting he offer $1 million for a job that used to
go for $200,000 just because he can't find anyone? That is flawed economics
and a blind faith in the market. The market is not perfectly elastic. We're
talking about people, and not mass-produced goods or primary, replaceable
material (Iron, Coal etc.). He probably can't operate profitably at those
prices.

Second, people are super diverse, and from personal experience, its very very
hard to find the right kind of people for any job. If he's found someone who
works well for the company, he's very lucky and realizes that. All he wants to
do is to bring him to his main office so that he can possibly be more
efficient and productive, and the current US labor laws are not letting him do
so.

 _> In fact, the way you can tell this is bs and it is entirely about price is
AeroFS opened a canadian subsidiary! I wonder how much that cost. At a guess,
$30k? So apparently $30k is less than the premium required to pry engineers
out of dropbox or box._

What if engineers working at dropbox are perfectly happy where they are? How
do you know that he hasn't tried that? Does he even have time to court all the
employees of dropbox; he probably has much better things to do with his time.

 _> Or god forbid, train someone._

Anecdotally, this is false. I admit I've worked only for 2 American companies
so far, but both of them have been incredibly involved with the local
community; hiring many entry-level engineers, giving internships to students
from community colleges and organizing learn-to-code events on premises.

~~~
x0x0
Weird, it's almost like yuri was the one peddling errant bullshit that h1bs
were not about cost. So I see you saying that they are, well, exactly about
cost. Glad we cleared that up. Whining that he can't operate profitably at
market wages reinforces my point: h1bs are entirely about cost.

So perhaps he needs to offer a million dollars, if that's what it takes to get
his perfect unicorn (minimum job requirements: 23 years experience with
python. Cue whining that we have a talent shortage when Guido declines job
offer.) But I'd bet he'd get a hell of a lot of interest at even 10% or 15%
over the going wage.

All he wants is to sidestep US immigration law to undercut wages of domestic
employees. There, was that so hard to admit?

Yes, he's too busy to recruit! Why aren't those uppity employees lining up
begging to work for him? I mean, looking at employees on linkedin is, like, so
much work!

~~~
dang
> yuri was the one peddling errant bullshit ... Whining ... his perfect
> unicorn ... Cue whining ... All he wants is to sidestep US immigration law

Whoa, this is not ok.

Most of your 15+ comments in this thread have combined grand unsubstantiated
claims with lashing out at those you disagree with. That's bad enough, but
here you've crossed into personal attack. Personal attacks are not allowed on
Hacker News.

The level of discourse you're practicing here makes me ashamed of this site:
lacking in either civility or substance and whipping up indignant froth. In
the future, please optimize for quality rather than quantity. One high-quality
comment is a greater contribution than a dozen rude ones.

People legitimately have divergent views of this complex matter: companies use
the immigration process for different reasons, there are different levels of
talent being sought, employers and employees have different vantage points,
and so on. Turning it into a polarized nastiness match, as you and a few
others have done, destroys the capacity of this site for exploratory
conversation.

~~~
x0x0
Hmm. I apologize -- I was rude.

------
bokonist
Seems like the sensible solution would be to auction off the immigration quota
slots. Decide on some number of business/talent based visas to be issued each
year. Then do a rolling auction of the visas. If a person gets a visa, comes
to America, but then does not like their job and goes home, the company gets a
prorated refund. If the person stays more than five years, they get a green
card automatically and are free to work wherever they please or start their
own company. If a Facebook or YC want the talent, they can bid up the price
and pay for the talent. The government doesn't have to worry about in which
professions there is a "scarcity" or a talent shortage. If there is a real
shortage of valued workers, businesses will bid for visas for those types of
workers. It will work itself out. But this system will prevent the body shops
from racing to the bottom by using H1-B's as disposable indentured servants.

~~~
bradleybuda
The unstated premise behind your comment, and indeed this entire debate, is
that there is only so much "room" for immigration in the US. This leads us to
arguments about how large the quota should be, how it should be divided, etc.

This is a flawed assumption. The US has nearly unlimited room to accept
immigration, and on average every single immigrant we accept would increase
the size of our economy. Immigrants are not a "drain on the system" that must
be limited. Human brains are the single most valuable resource in the
universe, and we should take as many as we can. Not only that, but the people
who self-select to move their families across the world are the most
motivated, entrepreneurial, and risk-seeking brains in the world.

Our default assumption should be that the walls are down and the gates are
open; only in extraordinary cases should we be sending _anyone_ (regardless of
skills) away at the border.

~~~
rayiner
The U.S. has a fixed capacity to absorb immigrants while integrating them into
our culture. In many places in the country, immigration is already too much,
resulting in insular immigrant communities and tensions between immigrants and
everyone else. Those are bad things.

The unstated assumption underlying the assertion that "the U.S. has nearly
unlimited room to accept immigration" is that culture, and institutions
arising out of that culture, doesn't matter. That's false. Culture and
institutions are what make the U.S. worth immigrating to in the first place.

And I say this as an immigrant. My parents didn't leave their lives half a
world away to come here for the weather.

~~~
jseliger
_The U.S. has a fixed capacity to absorb immigrants while integrating them
into our culture_

I've heard this said before but never seen any data on it, though similar
rationale was used in the Immigration Act of 1924:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924)
, which helped condemn millions to death in Europe.

Bryan Caplan makes the case for open borders here:
[http://openborders.info/bryan-caplan/](http://openborders.info/bryan-caplan/)
. Separately, his books, _The Myth of the Rational Voter_ and _Selfish Reasons
to Have More Kids_ , are both great, and full of brilliantly contrarian
thinking.

~~~
cousin_it
Bryan Caplan makes strange arguments sometimes. In this pdf [1], he says if
you don't want immigrants to vote or receive benefits, then why not just
prohibit them from voting or receiving benefits? That would still be more
humane than keeping them out of the country altogether, right? He doesn't even
mention that it would create an underclass, which is one of the biggest
reasons for crime and other social ills.

[1]
[http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-...](http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-
journal/2012/1/cj32n1-2.pdf)

~~~
danielweber
I don't see why the opponents of open immigration would believe, for an
instant, that those people that are let in without benefits would stay in that
situation. You paint exactly the arguments ("permanent underclass!") that,
after bargaining to get them here without benefits, would be used to get them
benefits.

------
ta75757
There was an article submitted here a long time ago, it's title was:

"Fuck you, pay me."

I find it applicable here as well.

If programmers were paid like doctors, more talented people would start
considering programming over med school or finance as a career. And then you
would have more "talent". That's economics, that's capitalism. (Yes, laws
hindering immigration are a trade barrier, and hiring immigrants is "more
efficient" and therefore "better for consumers". But free trade advocates tend
to only favor free trade _for them_. See, e.g. farming subsidies.)

So the question is, who deserves the money more, the developers or the CEOs
and shareholders? Well, in our system today, the money goes to whoever has
more power and fights harder for it. So, as a developer, I'm inclined to fight
for my side, just as OP is fighting for his.

~~~
otoburb
The phrase originated from the movie Goodfellas (1990), and then was brought
back into the memesphere when Mike Monteiro (co-founder of Mule Design Studio)
used that phrase in a fun yet forceful presentation[1].

[1] [http://vimeo.com/22053820](http://vimeo.com/22053820)

------
selmnoo
> Just a few hours later, Vox published an article titled These tech interns
> are probably making more than you are where they shared a tweet showcasing
> candid salaries at various tech companies, some larger, some smaller:

That is a kind of a bullshit argument though isn't it, that "hey look, the
_interns_ (supposedly half-able, incompetent newbies) are getting paid so
high!! We have such wonderful salaries in tech!"

It's a lie, a total misrepresentation of the facts. The interns are usually
super programmers themselves. I mean, for instance, when Alex Gaynor was
"interning" at Quora he ported Quora to run on PyPy. He's a really big
contributor to projects like Django and PyPy. When he's "interning" at your
company he's probably more able than a lot of other folk you could find, and
he should be getting very big bucks. So this argument is really just complete
hogwash. A good amount of times I see the interns training employees rather
than the other way around (as it should be).

Secondly, they're interning _in the valley_ , where "boarding" costs are about
equal to costs of getting a mansion in a midwestern city in a reasonably safe
and fun neighborhood. When you're "making 90k" in the valley you have the
quality of life worth ~60k in a midwestern city. If anything, they are
underpaid.

edit: minor revision on figures for clarity of argument; though I do agree
with moc down below when he says "If you're comparing suburbs (Silicon Valley)
to suburbs, the discrepancy is much greater and I'd say that $90k/CA ~=
$40k/Midwest"

~~~
dashboardfront
> When you're "making 90k" in the valley you have the quality of life worth
> 30k in a midwestern city.

Not true at all, yet this is constantly repeated like it's fact.

Look up indifference curves and consumption bundles. You're ignoring
microeconomics. For anyone that doesn't assign excessively high utility
towards housing size, 90k in the valley is a much better quality of life than
30k in a midwestern city.

This is where cost of living calculators fail as well. You can't compare the
same basket of goods everywhere you go. People will adjust their basket of
goods depending on relative prices; it doesn't mean that their utility has
dropped. It's income effect vs substitution effect.

Edit: The number above has been changed to 60k~. I'd say this is probably a
more reasonable argument. As for the suburban argument, I don't really know
the numbers and I can't argue there. As a person in my 20s who grew up in San
Jose, the suburbs are like a bad dream that continuously haunts me.

~~~
logfromblammo
If you want your comparison to be equally valid wherever you make it, you have
to use the same basket of goods everywhere you go. Otherwise, I can't tell
whether you are comparing apples to oranges or pears to grapefruit.

When I look at the numbers for that basket of goods that I currently consume,
and price it out for San Francisco, I find that it is completely unattainable
for anything less than 3 times what I currently pay, and could be difficult to
reliably source for less than a multiple of 4. That's the fact.

It does not matter that I would in reality have to substitute down to inferior
goods. It would still be objectively worse than what I have now. The value of
my willingness to substitute counterbalances the savings I make by
substituting. If I move back to the cheaper area, I won't keep the SV basket;
I will substitute right back to the best goods that I can afford.

~~~
gjm11
I agree that there's a big transparency benefit to using the same basket
everywhere, but I don't think that actually gives the most realistic answer.

Imagine that every day, for every meal, you eat spaghetti carbonara. You'd be
almost as happy eating linguine with pesto, but you happen to have a slight
preference for spaghetti carbonara. Now you move somewhere else where, for
whatever reason, spaghetti is 100x the price and every other ingredient is
only 2x the price. Are you suddenly 100x poorer? No, much nearer 2x, because
you'll just switch from spaghetti to linguine. You'll be slightly worse off
than 2x because, darn it, you _preferred_ spaghetti, but only slightly.

Moving to San Francisco from (say) Minnesota is a bit like that. Housing is a
bajillion times more expensive, so you'll have to make do with a lot less of
it, but unless housing is the only thing you care about that doesn't mean
you're a bajillion times worse off. You do need some housing, and many other
things are also more expensive, so there's no argument that you're worse off
in SF for any given level of income. But _not by the factor the price of
housing would suggest_.

(A couple of other remarks about this sort of comparison. 1. The richer you
are, the less these things matter -- if you're putting a substantial fraction
of your income into investments, _those_ don't change in price at all just
because you move to San Francisco. 2. Relatedly, if you are able to buy a
house rather than renting, you're not as much worse off as the eyewatering
price of the house would suggest -- because later on you can move out of San
Francisco, sell that house, and get the money back again.)

~~~
mbreese
> because later on you can move out of San Francisco, sell that house, and get
> the money back again

You obviously didn't own a house in the US about 5-6 years ago...

~~~
gjm11
I obviously felt my comment was already too long and wouldn't on balance
benefit from a cautious parenthesis to the effect that you might actually get
a lot more money back than you put in, or a lot less, depending on exactly
what the housing market does, and that it also depends a lot on how much of
the house you own (the limiting case of a 100% mortgage is, at least to begin
with, almost indistinguishable from renting), but that to first order,
assuming a reasonable amount of equity and no catastrophic shocks to the
housing market, what you get out is at least a fair fraction of what you put
in ... but as two people have commented on that omission, perhaps I was
mistaken.

(As it happens, I indeed didn't own a house in the US 5-6 years ago, but I'm
well aware of what happened.)

------
robrenaud
> Over the history of the company, zero of our hiring decisions have been made
> on a cost-savings basis.

Every decision is a cost/benefit analysis. If costs aren't a factor in your
hiring, then raise your salary offers. How hard will it be to attract great
engineers if you start offering $5M/year?

~~~
anthony_d
Exactly. Offer $5M/year and you'll have more resumes than you can read in a
year.

------
Spooky23
My grandparents were all immigrants who didn't need to jump through hoops to
come in. IMO, this should still be possible. I think we should have a open
lottery that meets 95% of immigration demand, and have some sort of
competitive/fast-track process for skilled workers that would weed out the
bodyshops.

That said, this post is crafted marketing nonsense.

For example, a statement like this from a company founder is ridiculous: "In
fact, the restrictions on H-1B visas make that entire topic moot since highly
skilled talent must meet strict wage requirements set by the US government
based on prevailing wages in the county you're hiring the person into, in the
skill-level and profession of that person."

Let's be real here. Every big bank and insurance company has battalions of
"Senior Programmer/Analysts" churning out J2EE for $35k/year or less.
"Prevailing wage" is a term of art that doesn't mean what it sounds like it
ought to.

~~~
hcho
>My grandparents were all immigrants who didn't need to jump through hoops to
come in. IMO, this should still be possible. I think we should have a open
lottery that meets 95% of immigration demand, and have some sort of
competitive/fast-track process for skilled workers that would weed out the
bodyshops.

Doesn't US have a green card lottery?

~~~
Spooky23
Yes, but the quotas are too low.

We literally have 5 million Mexicans living in the US as second class people
without access to worker protections and other institutional things. It's a
situation that shouldn't exist.

My grandparents came here in the 1930's and 1940's. In those days, entry was
pretty trivial. No reason why it shouldn't be that way again.

~~~
mahyarm
The sad reason why is the welfare state. It didn't exist back then so it
didn't cost that much to accept immigrants.

Low skill immigrants cost a lot unless you do the second class mexican thing
unfortunately, then they're cheap!

------
starfishjenga
If this guy is starved for talent couldn't he just increase what he's willing
to pay and steal people from other tech companies? (There are a number of
people who would be willing to jump ship for the right #s I'm sure.) This
seems to be where BusinessWeek is correct. At the end of the day engineers
should be getting paid more.

~~~
tmarthal
There are only a handful of Yann LeCuns in the world. You can't just duplicate
certain technical expertise.

This isn't about developer X using framework Y; this is about research level
PhDs (and equivalent) that cannot continue work for a US-based company because
of visa issues.

~~~
RhysU
So have said companies fund research fellowships/projects producing PhDs with
the skillsets they want. Then pay enough to entice them to join the company.
The US DoE does this specifically because it cannot hire non-citizens.

------
bquinlan
A lot of the comments assume that there are only two choices: hire a local
American worker or hire an immigrant. But, as the article shows, there is a
third choice: hire outside of the US.

Giving this third choice, I don't think that restricting H1B visas in some
fashion (either through cost or availability) will necessarily have the effect
of increasing domestic wages. It may have the opposite effect and drive
companies to open up shop outside of the US - Microsoft opened up a
development shop in Canada for just this reason [1] and my understanding is
that Microsoft would strongly prefer that all of its employees be in one
location.

The biggest risk would be that American companies start choosing non-US
locations as their engineering center-of-gravities because they want to avoid
the coordination costs of distributed development without losing the ability
to hire non-American workers [2].

[1]
[http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/11/07/MSWord/](http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/11/07/MSWord/)

[2] This already happens at a small scale already. I know of a SF-based
startup that moved their engineering organization to Europe because they
couldn't get visas for key team members.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
I suspect countries like Canada will absolutely thrive because of their more
open immigration policies. Also immigrants create jobs.

[http://www.economist.com/news/business/21576101-start-ups-
fo...](http://www.economist.com/news/business/21576101-start-ups-founded-
immigrants-are-creating-jobs-all-over-america-jobs-machine)

------
olegious
Have a friend- early 20s, speaks 5 languages, graduated from one of her
country's top law schools, worked in corporate law, received a full
scholarship to do a decent LLM program in the USA- she finished the program
with a 4.0. She won a green card, but when it came time for her to interview
for the green card she was told- "we filled the Eastern Europe quota." So now
she's getting kicked out of the US, shouldn't the goal of an immigration
system be to attract and retain the best and the brightest?

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "She won a green card"

I'm guessing this was through the DV Lottery program? If so I agree that the
goal of immigration should be to attract the best and the brightest but there
are plenty of ways to do that. The DV program is the only avenue for people
who haven't had a chance in life to become the best and brightest yet - it's
their only way in. Your friend could presumably get in on a work visa which,
considering her qualifications, shouldn't be difficult. The DV program is a
lottery and the only way for people who don't meet the strict requirements of
the other visas to get in. Even when you win your chance at acceptance is
50/50 as they issue 2x the number of winning entries as they have visas
available to account for people who win and change their mind or get in via a
spouse.

~~~
uniformlyrandom
Right now, getting a GC through L1/H1 path is extremely painful (again, H1B
lottery + huge delay in actually getting a GC + painful employment-based GC
process). You can try EB1, but good luck proving "extraordinary abilities" in
the tech sector.

DV is a nice 'instant jackpot' option. Some people I know were playing DV even
when they had EB GC pending. Small percentage of those won the GC, and opted
for DV (paid out of pocket) instead of waiting for company-sponsored EB.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I get it. They make immigration way to hard considering how much immigration
has done for America in the last 200 years. I wish it was an instant jackpot
though. I've tried for 6 years. It's 5 minute application in October - wait
until May for the result - try again in October. And if you do win in May you
likely won't get to America for another 18 months or so.

------
tankerdude
Time and time again, this type of article pops up. Time and time again, it's
about economics, and the solution has ALWAYS been about economics. It's just
that the companies that the political machines don't want to talk about it.

Like I've said in the past, and it is a simple solution that would make people
like AeroFS happy is to have an economic one: Your H1-B employee must be paid
in the >95% (or more) percentile in the field, or in your company, no which
ever is greater. All salaries must be compared to that of senior engineers or
higher.

That's when the real "need" shows up and that will weed out the bogus H1-B
gamers and get real value from it. Now, if we are still capping out on H1-Bs
even with this rule, then we can then agree that there is a "tech workers
shortage".

Before then, we all know it's either using improper induction (one brown cow)
or examples to try and prove a contradiction (has always been invalid), or
they are flat out lying.

~~~
gumby
The author of the article areas with you! He says that hiring an H1-B is MORE
expensive -- not only do you have to pay what the DOJ considers the prevailing
wage for the area and the job but you have to pay legal bills, relocation,
interview costs, a lot of personnel time _plus_ you have to wait frigging
_forever_ to be able to finally employ the person.

His experience is exactly my experience too: I have hired a _lot_ of H1-Bs
(perhaps 5-10% of all the hires I've done over the years) and they were always
a last resort because at the end of the day they cost so damned much.

I don't see anything wrong with this. Hire a local if you can, just like
shopping locally if you can.

(I suppose if you're a commodity contractor shop hiring people to write Java
code as the front end of a billing system, the situation might be different --
that's the programming equivalent of hiring a gardener and I assume in most
cases skills aren't considered that important).

~~~
tankerdude
If he really did agree with me, then why did he point out how X and Y INTERN
costs SOOO much money?

It is orthogonal to the conversation, and yet he brought it up. It is there
for a reason, and that reason is to point out that it is costly to hire an
engineer. Why would he bring up that point?

So what exactly where the salaries of those on H1-Bs? If you put on your job
posting, that the salary range would be 250-300K, do you think you'd be
digging through the bottom of the barrel for the resumes?

Lastly, what is the difference in costs to you? In house lawyer (if the
company is large enough, can handle the docs). Paperwork for them is a few K.
Relocation and interview process is nearly a wash for out of state candidates.
Again, a few K delta.

That then is the excuse of a lower salary for the employee (by a significant
amount).

So "expensive" in terms of processing seems like not a whole lot in the grand
scheme of things.

------
djb_hackernews
Great post.

But I'd like to make a point that addresses an underlying assumption from the
blog post.

Most people who would like to see the H1-B system reformed or limited do not
also want to limit the immigration of highly technical people. Full stop.

The H1-B system is gamed and unfortunately the OP lost out because of it. I'd
really like to see the OP advocating for reform instead of mindless expansion
so that companies who really need the technical talent can get it and not
become losers of the system and take the easy way out of advocating for
expansion.

~~~
yurisagalov
Reform can come in many forms, not the least of which is increasing the visa
cap. I do think taking a look at companies that are abusing the system is very
important, as is taking a look at what we classify as "highly skilled labor".
Looking online, many of the companies that fall into the top-100 visa sponsors
are respectable technology companies. In 2014, Microsoft was #8, Google was
#12, Intel #15, Oracle #15, Amazon #20, Apple #23. At the same time, of
course, Infosys looks to be #1 by a wide margin. That's likely a problem.

------
netcan
From a simple, static economic perspective cost and availability the number of
qualified candidates available to you are inversely correlated. Any influx of
candidates brings down salaries. Theoretically, there is no such thing as a
shortage. It is always true that you can find more programmers by paying more.
Beat all those internship offers and you will get plenty of quality interns.
Both of these positions are true but dishonest.

That's a static and simple perspective though. In the real world ceterus is
not parabus. Widening your search net to include people educated and
experienced elsewhere has value. "Production" is not limited by a simple
demand-price function, but by ideas and execution. There are also a lot of
"impossible to measure but undeniably there" effects brought on by trade in
goods, migration of people and such. Hubs have a vibrancy to them that have
been obvious to observers since ancient times. People are not commodities like
coal or lead. Price dynamics are real, but the don't capture everything. There
is a rising tide element that is almost certainly substantial. The industry's
success, creates opportunities for employees.

I'm not American, so I don't have a dog in this. But, it seems to me that the
US got to where it has gotten to by being a dynamic hub sucking up the vibrant
and ambitious of the world.

------
nichochar
As an H1B person, who has incredibly talented (french, actually) friends who
did not get the lottery, I can back up the veracity of this article 100%.

And it is very upsetting to me that this lottery even takes place. How does it
even make sense? This system was designed for the world of 20 years ago, when
people barely ever travelled outside of their country.

~~~
xxxyy
Last year I had pending offers from a couple big SV companies, all of them at
around $200k/year. Same goes for many of my friends (I have just graduated).
Did not get any job due to H1B shortage. I will stay in Europe for now, as I
am not interested in being humiliated by such an absurd system. America, fix
your immigration.

------
joelaaronseely
Let's go further. This country was founded on immigrants. This country is
powerful because of the wonderful hard-working immigrants who have come to
this country and seen opportunity and seized it with both hands and their
teeth. It's not the lazy, entitled, molly-coddled, citizens who would rather
watch endless episodes of real-world who made this country great (and yes, I,
sadly, fall in that category). It is the people who came here with nothing and
worked as hard as they could for themselves and their families who keep
reinventing this country. We should welcome as many hard-working immigrants
into this country as we can.

From an economic perspective it makes sense, too. My wife came with her family
from Vietnam in 1991. They were given 1 year of public assitance of $1100 per
month. There were 11 people living in a rented house that didn't speak a word
of English. Since that time they have grown up, gone to college (and paid for
it through working side-jobs), become nurses, optometrists, and doctors. The
return the US is getting on their pitiful $13K investment 20 years ago is an
annuity worth $Millions in taxes alone! Sign me up for that kind of
investment!

------
arca_vorago
I don't like the logic or lack thereof in this article. There are lots of
claims made on the backhand that never get followed up with any sort of
quantification or citation.

Maybe this company hires for talent and not costs, but every place I've been
hires for both, so to pretend costs aren't factored in seems to be an
oversight.

My personal experience is that it is generally true that H-1B is used by
companies to get the same level of expertise with reduced cost, and to me the
issue still stands that for every immigrant that gets hired, an American is
potentially out of job. The worst I saw this was at a genetics lab, and while
we would fly people in from all over the country, we had a sizable percentage
of H-1B's.

Perhaps there is some other math that I haven't seen that shows a H-1B worker
ends up contributing to the local economy by a factor, but the primary offset
I see with that is most of the time they are sending large portions of their
money to their home country, because they may be able to get their wife here
but the rest of the family is still OCONUS.

What it all boils down to is a disruption in the standard accepted economic
model in this globalized world. Companies aren't forced to be "patriotic", and
will seek to optimize profit (and if that means hiring better talent from
elsewhere at a cheaper price, so be it). This outlook though, conflicts with
what I understand of the history and purpose of corporations. In the days of
the British East India company (on of the first "Company's"), the monarchy
retained the right to revoke letters patent or royal charter, because the
corporation was designed to profit the country and not just the corporation.

This idea seems to have been lost and we live in an age where neo-tech
globalized fuedalism seems to be around the corner because it has been lost.

------
jaimeyap
There are a lot of flawed zero-sum arguments going on in this thread.

Do the people that are so vocally against the H1B program really believe that
the US tech industry would be where it is without H1B workers?

Simply put, giving US companies access to the best and the brightest from
around the world has made the US the global hub for technology. Any wage
suppressive influences should be weighed against the overall growth of the
industry as a whole. Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook. ALL of them have been
hugely impacted by foreign workers. Our industry would be much much smaller
than what it is without the H1B program. As a tech worker, your take is of a
MUCH MUCH larger pie because of the ability to hire the best in the world in
one place.

To the extent that there are companies out there that exploit the H1B program
to hire indentured "slave" labor. We should be directing our criticism at
those bad apples. Discuss ways to crack down on that, instead of channeling
pseudo racist, xenophobia at non-american workers.

Also... the entire premise of "us versus them" seems ridiculous to me. Why not
make the "them" be "us". You have highly educated, skilled people wanting to
become tax paying and productive citizens. H1B is a road to a green card, and
eventually naturalization. It's better for America to increase the population
of motivated, skilled, and intelligent people. This drives the economy!

------
CodeSheikh
I understand the true benefits of hiring true talents for a true companies.
Companies like Infosys, WiPro, Tata are sucking up resources and literally
providing modern day pseudo-slave labor. Govt just need to either stop giving
H1-Bs to these companies or give them a small percentage. These companies are
killing the talent based immigration for everyone else.

------
dude3
A blanket statement like that simply isn't true. I can look in several tech
offices and draw conclusions. Are there exceptions, sure. Therefore, H1B
should be reserved for the talent you speak of. Why are we bringing QA
engineers on H1B? We can train a large portion of these jobs here through
programs like Hack Reactor. But we aren't, we are looking for simple fixes.

~~~
dude3
Last month I was ridding in an Uber and the driver told me he was a Math
Teacher. He said that all his students wanted to do was code all day long. He
asked me if I wanted to come into class and just tell the kids about my job
etc., they would "love that".

I was thinking to myself. Here is a math teacher in the middle of Silicon
Valley asking me (no one special by any means) to come in and talk to the
kids. Why don't other companies and CEO's currently do the same? Given the
dire problem that they claim there is, they should be out there getting kids
interested in these jobs. Some of these kids could be working in 2 years
(probably before any legislation would actually go through). Bring them to the
Facebook or Google offices and get them interested and motivated. Finally,
ensure that they can actually have at least a median paying job in the field.

I think we should look at coding like vocational schools. You see all those
programs about getting a degree to repair cars. What about getting degrees to
do QA and code? It works in Germany very well, especially for kids who don't
go to college. According to the math teacher, the demand and interest is
there. So why don't we do something for the future generations rather than
look for a short term fix?

~~~
VLM
There's too many artificial barriers in the market to hiring those kids.
They're not ALL going to graduate from Stanford, for example.

~~~
morenoh149
You don't have to be a compilers expert. Yes the supply of experts in
ML/CV/compilers may be small worldwide. But I believe the current situation is
a symptom as well of negligence on the part of these large tech companies.
It's much cheaper to train locally and hire. Microsoft, apple, google et al
should join forces to establish a vocational school in the bay area. Make it a
2 year program. I bet you'd get great engineers if Hack reactor, general
assembly et al are any indicator.

------
zb
The problem with H1-B is that it's not even a speed bump for those it is
supposedly trying to stop, while it's a total road block for everyone else.

If all you care about is rotating in another 19000 warm, cheap bodies every
year then you have no worries: just submit 40000 applications every year and
roll with whatever comes out of the lottery.

If, on the other hand, you are like the author and want to hire one particular
person with a specific skill set, you have a roughly 50% chance of being able
to do that in between 6 and 18 months from any given point in time. (Note that
there's no way to do it in less than 6 months.)

The system works well only for the very companies that are exploiting it. I
know that the US missed out on 2.5 years of tax revenue that it could have had
from me had I not moved to another country that made getting a work visa
trivial because of this issue. That worked out great for me, but I still
struggle to see how it made America better off.

------
mattxxx
The discussion about H1B's is becoming so polarized. As an Engineer, I want to
work with other good engineers <period>. You can really good talent from
abroad - or you can get really bad talent that costs less. So it's not black-
and-white.

I think whatever systems are in-place are undermining talent, in a field where
it's so hard to see how good a worker is before they come aboard. So it's not
even about external vs. domestic talent; it's the hiring that is fucked.

------
imglorp
Notice OP is hiring in SF. Does aerofs want remote workers? They'd open up
several orders of magnitude more applicants if they would do so.

~~~
yurisagalov
We prefer local as much as possible. But, we do now have a Canadian office,
so... :)

~~~
nraynaud
as a European, I think I'd rather live in Canada, it seems like a nicer
country.

------
noddingham
I applaud your efforts for hiring for talent, but you aren't making a fair
discussion of the issue. Of course you can select for talent when you're a
small company and you are doing all the hiring yourself. But as others have
pointed out, the debate about a shortage of tech workers vs. H1-B workers
isn't about you, it's about companies like Accenture and IBM that have
200-300k workers and _are_ looking at it from a cost perspective.

------
angersock
I can't be the only person from the Midwest who noticed that list of
internship rates.

Fuck me, I'm getting paid half that per month. WTF.

~~~
jkyle
What you're looking at with those offers is likely a PhD in computer science
or engineering who specialized in something those companies want. Those aren't
what you think of as internships done by Sophomores or Juniors in college.
They're an extended interview of a highly sought after expert in their field.
Both of the candidate by the company and vice versa.

That's why the offers look more like salaries. Also, those "housing" offers
are ridiculous. A 1 bedroom here can cost you 2k/mth easy. A flat, $1,500. I
wouldn't be surprised if they're staying in corporate housing and those are
just estimates of the value in the internship "package".

~~~
skadamat
Haha they are definitely sophomores and juniors in college. CS undergrads from
top 20 CS programs are getting offered that much for summers, I've witnessed
these offers from a lot of my friends.

~~~
xxxyy
I wouldn't maybe laugh, but can confirm.

------
Sorgam
What if the H1B visas were not for foreigners, but for US people from other
states? Would people still be making the same arguments? California companies
hiring cheap midwest talent and disadvantaging the rightful locals of their
jobs and high salaries.

People are still people, no matter what country they're from. To restrict
immigration for work means you're saying some people, through no fault of
their own, deserve to earn less money by working in their own country.

Any time you say "I'd hire a local over a foreigner", you're effectively being
racist. It might not be their race specifically, but their nationality, the
identity of their parents, their wealth (to do their own immigration), etc.
This is still discriminating based on something the person has no control
over. It's still saying "people similar to me deserve more good things in life
than people I can't relate to" or "people in my in-group deserve to be treated
better than members of out-groups".

~~~
MagicWishMonkey
These businesses benefit greatly from our strong
economy/infrastructure/judicial system, I don't think it's unreasonable to
expect them to favor American workers over foreigners. There's nothing racist
about that.

I don't have a problem with a company hiring foreign labor, but I do think
there should be strict limitations as long as our unemployment rate is >2-3%.

------
candybar
This is a false dichotomy, because cost and talent are related - either this
is about minimizing the cost of talent at a fixed level of talent, maximizing
the talent at a fixed level of cost, or something in between.

It's completely implausible that for a small company, the amount of talent
they need cannot be had at any cost without immigration.

I'm extremely sympathetic to the economic argument that there is no such thing
as shortage and companies simply need to pay up to get the talent they need.

What does exist, on the other hand, is the cost of labor gap between other
countries and the US, which can in the long term make American companies less
competitive and cause companies to move projects overseas at the margin,
whether by outsourcing or through foreign subsidiaries. What's in the the best
interests of the US is a careful balancing act that ensures neither the
flooding of the labor market with cheaper labor, nor erosion of American
competitiveness through extreme cost differences.

------
bhangi
I suspect that the majority of the cases where H-1B workers are paid less than
the prevailing wages are at body shops like Wipro, TCS and yes, IBM. IMHO one
potential fix for the situation could be to disallow (or at least make it
sufficiently expensive) for a company to hire an H-1B worker for any third
party work -- that is, if company A hires a worker, then the worker would have
to work on company A's premises only and that any such work cannot be sold to
third parties on a time and material basis. Yes, enforcement will be difficult
and there will be clever ways of circumventing the regulations, but I honestly
see no other solution except to cut out H-1B altogether. Which, IMHO would be
cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Having been in a position of
trying to hire engineers in this market, the AeroFS experience is spot on.

And yes, we should completely get rid of L-1. I agree that it is one channel
that is exploited by the body shops.

------
supercanuck
Funny, I only see 3 companies he listed in the Top 100 on this particular
list:

[http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-
Sponsor.aspx](http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx)

Could that be maybe the H1-B's are not going to the right companies?

Why are interns making more in salary than the H1-B's?

The issue _I_ have is not with Immigration, it is with the H1-B System.
Because of the limited supply of H1-B's and the nature of them to tie the visa
holder to an employer with the carrot of a green card (some day), is ripe for
abuse by suppressing wages, which appears to be exactly what is happening. The
supply of H1-B's is not necessarily the problem, it is the nature that they
tie them to a particular employer. The offer of a "green card" some day, has
value or acts as a bonus that citizens cannot compete with, so H1-B's salaries
can be lower because the promise of a green card has value.

~~~
jarek
> Why are interns making more in salary than the H1-B's?

Much of intern salary is de facto recruiting budget. It's probably the best
way to identify desirable employees and get a chance to sell your company to
them.

------
ausjke
I read somewhere a few years ago about the statistics, India took about 47% of
the H1Bs, China took about 17%.

India's IT agencies or staffing companies somehow get a lot of the H1Bs then
offload some works to India, or fly in H1Bs from Inda to CA, don't know how
that exactly works, but it does offer a lower H1B wage, maybe that's one
reason they have so many H1Bs, I don't really know.

For most other countries, H1Bs are hard to get, and those individuals are
normally hired by USA companies directly(not via a staffing agency or
something like India's huge IT companies' branch office), these guys are paid
decently and low-wage is not an option.

I'm trying to say the H1b-low-cost does exist for some cases, people abuse the
system whenever they can. Meanwhile, many other H1B hires are paid the same as
citizens, if not better, especially when they're hired by a local company
directly.

------
geebee
Unfortunately, this post discusses the expenses and difficulty of hiring, but
doesn't provide any information about the compensation offered, nor do I have
any real sense of what the position requires. Are they offering 200k for an
entry level crud developer? Are they offering 100k for someone with a PhD in
Math, an extensive 10+ background in high scale software development at a
large silicon valley company, and intricate knowledge of cutting edge data
science algorithms?

I understand that this information is difficult to release for all kinds of
reasons. But without it, it's essentially impossible to evaluate why this
company is having trouble filling the position, or whether the added costs for
dealing with the visa process are considerably less than the higher salary it
might cost to hire someone already authorized to work in the US.

------
UncleChis
Not sure why it is not mentioned enough in media coverage, but one big reason
of the H1B visa shortage is the mass applications from consultancy companies
(all I know are Indian based, but there might be more). There was a report
that these consultancies have about 25% - 33% H1Bs quota each year. They are
the ones who get large margin by paying employees cheap, even though on paper
these employees could get much higher from "customer companies". And you know
how they work? My friend spent 2 weeks at a consultancy, and they gave her
some projects to MEMORIZE while they were polishing her resume. They have
bunch of customers, so one memorizing can be used for many interviews! True
story. The government should fix this first!

------
DigitalSea
The experience for getting a working visa in the US is absolutely atrocious,
and let me preface this with the fact I am Australian and Australia offers an
E3 visa which allows you to work in the US indefinitely for the sponsoring
company. It doesn't have the same issues as a H1-B visa (lottery, restrictions
on when you can apply), but offers just as much flexibility and power.

I am currently a remote worker for a US company. The company have expressed
they would like for me to come over and work full-time and permanently with
their company as an actual employee. The kicker is: I have no degree and I
don't quite have the 12 years needed experience to qualify for the visa
either. This puts me in a difficult position.

I have about 8 years experience in web development, my title is actually
"front-end developer" and there is no degree in front-end development or even
web development herein lies an issue with how eligibility for visas are
determined, the H1-B included. You basically are expected to have a degree in
something even if it doesn't relate to your job exactly. If I had a degree in
arts or something, I would be able to get an E3 visa just like that because
all they see is the paper and go: here you are.

In the instance of this particular company, it is not that they are looking
for "cheap labour" they are offering quite a decent relocation bonus, monthly
expenditure for housing and other benefits, the issue is competition for them.

The company is based in Seattle and they are facing increasing competition
from Microsoft and Amazon mostly who are sucking up all of the talent in the
area, whilst other smaller startups and companies struggle to hire people
because the bigger companies are offering more money. Apparently Facebook also
are in that list, but you really only hear of Microsoft and Amazon mostly
taking the talent.

The particular skill-set they are looking for is another thing. They needed
someone with Java experience, AngularJS, React.js and the basics of web down-
pat. There are other people out there with similar skills, but if you know
Java especially, Amazon who are big users of the language, will scoop you up
before the for sale sign has even been put up.

It is at the point where it works out cheaper for the company to offer a
decent salary, relocation costs, monthly housing costs and pay for my flights
from Australia than it is for them to match the salaries being offered by the
other heavyweights in the area. That is how crazy things have become. Not to
mention the salary being offered is twice that of what I would get from any
employer here in Australia for my skill-set and experience.

I am sure that a few companies are taking advantage of working visas, but it
isn't fair to lump all companies into the same bucket. Some companies
legitimately need to hire outside country hires to compete.

I think there definitely needs to be reform. Companies who want to hire
candidates like me face challenges because of strict and archaic requirements
for obtaining a visa. Even visas that make it easier like the E3 still have
the same eligibility criteria which for people like me who are self-taught
puts us into a tricky spot.

Then you have Canada. They make it so incredibly easy to come over and work as
an Australian. Provided you have enough funds and a clean criminal history you
can get a working holiday visa for up-to 24 months. No degree required, no
archaic process, an actual visa that lets you work and gives you rights. While
this isn't permanent, it goes to show, how fundamentally different the US and
other countries are when it comes to visas.

~~~
manticore_alpha
I hate to say this, but in your position I'd suggest you collude with your
employer to fake a degree.

~~~
msie
And you just said: "There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to
the US for a long time now."

But for this guy's sake you'll make an exception? Is that because he won't
form an ethnic ghetto?

------
StylusEater
> There's a certain amount of tech talent at any given technical ability level
> available worldwide, and only a fraction of it is in the US.

And that is the "crux" of the problem. There will always be a shortage of
great engineers/programmers/anything ... isn't that why we call them "great"?

I'm more concerned with pipeline. Companies continually push for these changes
with reckless regard for grooming local talent. We're experiencing an
artificial shortage because the global pool of "great talent" isn't getting
bigger fast enough and it never will ... such a joke.

------
fakeironman
I went through IT trade school and no one was interested in how well I could
program a router, switch, or how well I could manage an exchange server, GPO,
or any of that bullshit. They want senior everything, when I was a junior.
Can't find senior in the USA? Go to another country for it and lobby hard for
it.

Companies no longer need to invest in the local population, like they use to,
they do enough spending billions in Washington DC. Why not bitch and moan
about not enough H1-B or any other green card crap?

Here is proof that the tech industry doesn't give a flying rats ass about the
USA and why I want out. Lobbying figures per company.

2014 \------- Google Inc $13,050,000 Facebook Inc $7,350,000 Microsoft Corp
$6,080,000 Oracle Corp $4,860,000 Hewlett-Packard $3,939,000 Entertainment
Software Assn $3,821,138 IBM Corp $3,800,000 Amazon.com $3,190,000 Apple Inc
$2,920,000 Intel Corp $2,822,000

2013 \------- Google Inc $14,060,000 Microsoft Corp $10,490,000 Oracle Corp
$7,190,000 Hewlett-Packard $6,921,692 Facebook Inc $6,430,000 IBM Corp
$5,950,000 Entertainment Software Assn $5,210,000 Intel Corp $4,393,750
Amazon.com $3,456,831

Apparently they make too much money and trying to buy Washington like every
other industry. But people in the USA are too dumb to want to shake the
system.

------
squozzer
Certainly Yuri simplified his argument - he may have hired for talent first,
then maybe "fit", but he also had to consider costs. After all, he probably
couldn't justify paying a hire 1 billion USD per year. So cost is a
constraint, even if in Yuri's mind it's somewhat trivial.

And while Yuri's story is well-told and has a happy - if not completely
triumphant - ending, it's not that instructive regarding immigration policy.
Doubling H1s probably wouldn't have helped, maybe something like 5x would
have. How would THAT affect salaries? You don't need a Nobel in economics to
figure it out.

But let's talk about Yuri's solution - is it really that bad a deal for Yuri,
AeroFS, or the US? Not really.

Yuri might wish for his hire to be closer - we are social animals, always
looking for butts to sniff - but we live in the 2010s, not the 1950s.

AeroFS has a new office, congrats! It's now an international company!

And the US - we can cry about losing another taxpayer, but the additional
contribution of one or even thousands of decent-earning workers doesn't really
add much to the economy, especially when they require the services of a
government that has been in serious fiscal trouble for as long as I can
remember.

------
btbuilder
I have interviewed & screened a lot of developers both H1B (looking to
transfer), greencard holders and US citizens. I can't say that I noticed any
correlation between immigration status and mediocrity. I suppose if H1B was
organized in a way to prefer highly skilled individuals then I should have
seen a higher percentage of skilled H1B applicants.

I often wonder whether H1B should be restricted to full time employee
relationships rather than also allowing sub-contracts (with provided evidence
of a pending contract). If someone is top talent it should be in the interest
of final party to offer a full time position.

Either way I firmly believe it is important that if the US is to maintain its
lead in tech that there should be as few barriers as possible to getting top
talent into the country. The problem is that it is hard to introduce a
bureaucratic process that is free of fraud and yet filters out those who
aren't "highly skilled". I find educational requirements for visas fairly
meaningless (I hired one top developer who skipped college entirely), I find
academic requirements for things like Extraordinary Ability category (e.g.
published in journals, named on a patent etc) as uncommon in software.

Frankly software companies themselves make mistakes during hiring so I don't
know how we can expect the government to do better; It's comparable to the
patent office.

I'm surprised to hear that some software engineers working in the Bay Area
think that wages are depressed. Look at the mean salary of households in the
bay area compared with the rest of the state.

side note: unless green card process is started H1B is only renewable once for
a total stay of 6 years.

------
yogin
There is another visa you can use to _work_ legally in the US for 18 months,
it's the J visa. It's suppose to be a "training/internship" visa, and is a
good way to wait for other chances at an H1B, or a GC lottery (you never
know). The US has a 2 year clause that prevent some countries from staying in
the US at the end of their 18 months, but I was lucky it didn't apply to me.

I was lucky to get my H1B last year right at the end of my J1 visa, my
application arrived on April 1st, and considering the number of applications
they received, they flipped a coin to see if I was going to be considered...
luckily I won the toss!

There's definitely a need for a change somewhere, increased quota, new
immigration laws...

I also agree that it's about talent, every company is looking to hire _talent_
, unless they're cheaping out (fortunately I haven't met any of these
companies). Most companies I know (mostly startups) are actually looking at
the local markets first, but are willing to consider foreigners if they are
worth it. They don't mind the cost.

------
carsongross
The Silicon Valley privilege bubble is on farcical display here.

The immigration that bothers the vast majority of Americans (and, indeed, the
native populations in all countries) is low-skilled immigration that swamps
lower-income communities and drives down wages for the middle and lower
classes.

At this point I cannot help but think that the conflation of these two
different types of immigration is intentional.

~~~
jnbiche
Yeah, try being a hard-working, competent, solidly middle class 45-year old
software developer who has been laid off from his job at BigCorp in SmallCity,
Midwest, probably because BigCorp is bringing in a wave of L1 employees who
"understand the technology" better.

SmallCity sees an average of 1-2 software jobs posted on Monster _a month_ ,
some of which aren't even real jobs.

His only options are to uproot his family, and take the risk of moving out to
SV where he has no friends, family, or support system, and try to learn
Javascript so he can fit in at some ping-pong playing start-up, or watch his
family slowly descend into semi-poverty on his wife's 20,000/year
secretary/policewoman/teacher salary (if the family is lucky enough to have a
working mother).

I know it's hard to believe, but in much of the country, software engineering
(and even "real" engineering) jobs are always not jobs that carry extravagant
upper-middle class salaries. Outside of SV and large cities, most software
developers, even very competent ones, are solidly middle class, making
considerably less than doctors, lawyers, bankers, and other members of the
"professional" upper middle classes.

~~~
LLWM
Or to work remotely. Or to start his own business. Or find work in another
industry. Or do one of a million other things.

------
digitalzombie
It's about getting bare minimum talent and paying them less than the American
counterpart.

If this become like the film VFX industry we as programmers are doom. Life of
Pi, made millions and the VFX company behind it bankrupt.

If they keep on pushing for the immigration HB Visa stuff. We should all form
a Union.

VFX is screwed cause they didn't have a union from the beginning and now it's
much harder.

------
Joky
When I was struggling with the H1B lottery and was considering the options
with my Lawyer, she told me that an the company could apply for EB2 directly.
You don't need to be working here to enter the process. Of course EB delays
depends on the skill (EB1, EB2, EB3...) and the country of origin. But for a
European, it can be done quite quickly. Especially, the company does not need
a candidate to do the first part (labor certification) if I understood
correctly, so assuming that this part is done a French candidate (as mention
in the article) could be hired in a matter of months.

My lawyer just told me that companies does not go this way because it is a
little bit more costly, but also because if they get someone on H1B first,
they can lock him inside for years while processing the EB, limiting his
leverage to ask for raise or changing jobs.

------
oskarth
Regardless of the content (which is interesting), the "discuss on HN" link at
the end of the article prompts you to submit the article to HN, thereby giving
it free upvotes. This is a dark pattern and not a practice we should
encourage. Flagged, and I encourage other people to do the same.

------
rdlecler1
As a Canadian, I'm all for a better immigration system. I think it makes the
US stronger, but going on AngelList I see a lot of talented engineers. I have
difficulty believing that Google, Facebook, and Amazon are struggling to find
talent. Immigration would help startups though.

------
ebbv
That's great that AeroFS is hiring worldwide based solely on talent, but I can
tell you from experience working at Ford, that is not the case among massive
corporations. They are purely trying to exploit the wage differential between
the US and India, Pakistan and others.

~~~
Jacky800
Ford is not a 100% knowledge based industry.

------
hoapres
Uh No.

It's not possible but the only way to be sure is to "clone" the US into a NON
H1B from 1988 and let that evolve to 2014.

The probable result would have been an increase in wages (in real terms) along
with a LOT less population growth in Silicon Valley.

No one wants to come out and say it (but I will and do so) but we are changing
on an almost DAILY basis the racial composition (O.K. I am going to get flamed
as a racist but so be it) the US IT (which includes software engineering
workforce) from mostly caucasian Americans to Indians.

WORSE

Is that the apartment rents are at $3K+ per month because 10+ Indians (not
being sarcastic) are stuffed into 1BR apartments.

------
stretchwithme
The more highly skilled labor enter a free economy, the greater the demand for
lower skilled labor.

Of course, the opposite is also true.

That's because there is a demand for both from the other. An economy with an
abundance of workers with no skills presents opportunities to the skilled. And
vice versa.

I think it makes more sense to attract the highly skilled. Competition and
wars are won with technology and the more people we have comfortable with
technology, the faster we'll be able to adapt to the inevitable innovations
that are coming.

------
jpetersonmn
Complete BS article. How can supply of talent not be tied to cost.

------
induscreep
I don't understand what everyone is up in arms about.

H1B visas increases the supply of programmers. You don't exactly need a CS
degree to be a programmer, so there are a lot of programmers.

If people are complaining that H1B visas depress wages, then the correct
solution is unionization/collective bargaining.

I'm sorry, but programmers are a dime a dozen nowadays. Talent ALWAYS commands
a higher pay - H1B or not. Everything seems completely fair to me.

------
hoapres
This will NEVER happen.

Let's assume for arguments sake that these H1Bs are truly the "best and
brightest"

WELL

Then they SHOULD be paid like the best and brightest.

Using approximate numbers, let's say that the average salary for a software
engineer is $100K.

O.K.

Have the employer pay a MINIMUM of 125% of that to an H1B. The H1B gets $125K
a year which only seams reasonable as the H1B "obviously" is SO BRIGHT to
command a HIGHER salary.

WAIT, WAIT

That WILL NOT happen because this is all ABOUT COST.

------
throwaway832975
If H1-B holders could freely change employers then I'm pretty sure that Amazon
for one would be a better place to work. As far as I could tell they could
only get away with treating engineers like they did because the latter had
nowhere else to go (the vast majority are H1-B holders, not because of any
local shortage, I suspect, but because they are so exploitable).

------
vegabook
If we accept that maximum utility (that is, the jargon economists use for
maximum human fulfilment) is not only about maximum output, then the idea that
we should open all our borders to the lowest bidder, becomes invalid.

What is in the interests of corporations is not what is in the interests of
our society.

------
Jacky800
Automate agriculture using robots. Move in to the post-economic era as fast as
possible. That's the only solution. What can computer programmers do to
achieve this. Spend time daily on machine learning and contribute to ML
projects.

------
EdSharkey
H1B visas create indentured servants with no guarantees of the payoff of
citizenship. If you're an advocate of this, then you're one of the villains
who exploits your fellow man in an uncommon harsh way.

Just calling it the way I see it.

------
dannyr
Having worked for startups in SF/SV and non-startups in DC and San Diego,
exploiting H1Bs are more common in the latter.

I know of some companies reporting a fair wage to IRS/Labor Department but
actually paying the employees a lot less.

------
fiatmoney
The list of H1B visas is available, along with job titles, employers, and
salary.

[http://www.h1bwage.com](http://www.h1bwage.com)

The modal H1B visa goes to a pure body shop, for a salary that is not at all
above average.

------
qwerta
In my experience talented people have many options and US is not the best
choice.

------
briandear
Doesn't remote working make this less of an issue now? Unless you're dealing
with hardware, there is very little empirical evidence to detract from the
effectiveness of a remote workforce.

------
cletus
In my experience H1B visas generally fall into one of two pools:

1\. Getting skilled talent from overseas. You simply can't get enough of these
people locally. These go to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc;

2\. Cheap labour for bodyshops.

The problem here isn't (1) but (2). IMHO the problem has two primary causes:

1\. Prevailing wage determinations are a joke; and

2\. Lack of mobility, particularly the essentially indentured servitude system
that is employer sponsored permanent residency.

The last is particularly important. The queue for green cards is based on
country of birth and some countries have deep queues, particularly China,
India, the Phillipines and Mexico.

The way it works is you can have a 3 year H1B twice for a total of 6 years. If
your employer starts the green card sponsorship at least a year before your
(final) H1B expires you can stay indefinitely. You cannot then move employers
or, to some degree, have significant changes in job responsibilities. You
can't move (geographically) either.

Green card sponsorship works in essentially two phases.

The first is LC (labor certification). This is where the queue and per-country
quotas exist. Depending on category, if you're from India you might be waiting
5-7+ years for this.

The second phase is essentially automatic and takes 6-12 months.

Now the LC phase has some huge variables. You can get randomly audited (DOL
estimates 30% of LC applications will be audited and they randomly audit some
so employers don't game the system, so they claim). Those audits can lead to
further questions. This cycle can (and does) continue for years in some cases.

All this time the employee simply cannot move and has absolutely no bargaining
power with their employer.

The solution here is to give employees mobility and make green cards
essentially automatic after a given period of employment, combined with no
limits on H1B renewal. If you still want a per-country quota (and that sounds
like something the US would continue to want), then after, say, 3-5 years on
work visa you automatically enter the queue for permanent residency and when
your number comes up, you just get it.

Fact is, many foreigners are willing to work for essentially slave wages in
the hopes of a better life for them and their children. The current system
isn't slavery in the classic sense but I'd certainly call it indentured
servitude.

As for the idea that "they're stealing our jobs" [tm], let me just add my
personal perspective as someone who's interviewed:

There are _many_ people out there masquerading as programmers/engineers who
have utterly no business drawing a paycheck for such. I'd even go so far as to
say the _majority_. People who can actually program are in high demand,
regardless of country of origin and they're simply aren't enough of them.
Employing them from overseas does not (IMHO) hurt local talent. Demand exceeds
supply.

Even bodyshops are a symptom. Many companies, particularly Fortune 500
companies and governments at every level, are willing to accept high-priced
inccompetence-to-mediocrity that is the norm for "consultants" and vendors.

This isn't a zero sum games.

The real long term danger is that the US, as a whole, seems to take their
preeminence in technology as a given. At some point you'll reach a tipping
point where it just makes sense to invest in technology elsewhere. We're not
there yet. Far from it. But it could happen.

In 1800 the US had a population of ~2M. In 1900 it was ~50M. In those 100
years the US transformed from an agrarian backwater to an industrial
superpower largely on the back of immigration.

I understand the desire to shut the doors. This is pervasive at every level
from immigration to the ridiculous NIMBYism that is rampant in the Bay Area.
It's ultimately short-sighted however.

------
general_failure
Can someone tell me how the author managed to start a company with a H1B? I
thought this is not possible without the founder relinquishing ownership of
the company. Did I miss something?

------
tenpoundhammer
If this is only about talent then lets ensure that foreign workers are paid
equally and have the same rights as US workers.

Let's see how many H1-B's are handed out then.

------
known
H1B's are better at solving/finding a workaround for dead-end projects.

------
coldtea
Immigration is also about stealing talent (a precious resource) from
countries.

------
bfrog
Talent supply in fact reduces costs, so the two are in fact, tied together.

------
dragonwriter
The issues tech companies have with immigration are about costs. The argument
that is about "talent" that the AeroFS blog post makes is _not_ about talent
distinct from cost, its about AeroFS's preference to not bear the cost
(including time, financial cost, and risk) of developing talent to a
particular experience level and their preference to have that done for them,
and the fact that they found someone for whom that was done in a way they
liked and that -- except inconveniently situated with regard to immigration.

If we were honest that the issues in immigration (on both sides) _are_ about
costs (except for those that are about outright racism), then we could address
them more effectively.

There is a fairly direct value to immigrants and to certain others (e.g., in
the case of those with pre-arranged employment, as would have been the case
for the worker AeroFS write about, to their employers) of admitting specific
immigrants. There are also social costs and benefits of admitting immigrants.
(This also applies to non-immigrant visas, includingthe H-1B, which are, in a
sense, peripheral to the issue of immigration, though its mostly what the tech
industry is focussing on when discussing "immigration", which is one of many
disconnects between the tech industry and the wider society.)

The basic structure of our immigration system -- in terms of the various
immigration major categories and the decisions about which of them are
unlimited and which are limited by quotas -- represents a judgement about the
balancing of the social costs and benefits. Without challenging that basic
judgement, there are sensible reforms that could be made which make the system
better for everyone. The simplest that I see is to eliminate _all_ the hard
quotas in the family-based immigrant visa categories, and simply decide, in
each category, on a fee to be assessed for supernumerary (above the now-soft
quota) immigrants. (Generally, this should follow the structure of the family
preference categories, with the more distant relation categories having higher
fees.)

Instead of changing the structure of employer-sponsored immigrant visa
categories, and to address some of the non-immigrant economic visa categories
(particularly H-1B), what I'd strongly suggest is creating a separate no-quota
(that is, all fee-based) individual immigrant visa category for candidates who
are neither barred from immigrating to the US nor qualified in any of the
existing family preference categories, with the highest fees, and allow
economic entrants for work that is neither seasonal nor short-term to use that
(and eliminate the non-treaty based non-immigrant visa classifications that
this provision replaces, particularly the H-1B), while keeping the existing
quota-restricted employer-sponsored immigrant visa categories.

If a company wants to give an employee an payment (up-front or in arrears) to
cover the fee as a supernumerary immigrant (in either a family preference
class or the new open class), they could through a relationship governed under
contract law, but they'd get no special position with respect to the employee
under immigration law.

This would address any "talent" issue that isn't about cost that the tech
industry has with H-1B limits (or that industry in general has with the limits
in employer-sponsored immigrant visa categories), address those issues that
_are_ about costs by providing a direct mechanism by which the social cost of
the cost savings to industry are internalized in the transaction, address the
problems with hard quotas that cause real problems in the family preference
categories which are both drivers of illegal immigration _and_ undermine the
entire purpose of family-centered immigration policy, and provide funds to
address the social costs associated with the overall _level_ of immigration.

------
ratsimihah
Woah, now that's how you do it!

------
morekozhambu
lolz..! but talent always comes at a cost unless it comes from the third
world.

------
diogenescynic
I've worked for tech companies and a law firm that was in the top 4 in global
immigration. The worker shortage is a myth. It doesn't exist. When a company
claims they can't find a US worker they are lying and going through
'recruitment efforts' for Green Card and I-140 applications. HR uses a list of
skills from the H1B they wanted to hire and then tailor a job posting to that
exact list of skills in order to disqualify local applicants. By claiming they
can't find a US worker they can bring in their wage slave who will be an
indentured servant. They will use that person's visa and green card as a
carrot to wave in front of their face to make them go along with violating
labor laws. "Someday you'll be a US citizen if you just put up with this for a
little bit more!" They string this out into a decade long process often.
Oracle and Yahoo were the worst offenders. Anyone who is 'pro-immigration' is
just an unknowing tool for multi-billion dollar conglomerates. Immigration has
been turned into a public subsidy for the richest corporations.

Then you have outsourcing companies like Cognizant regularly scooping up 50%
of the H-1b lottery: [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2489146/technology-
law-...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2489146/technology-law-
regulation-offshore-firms-took-50-of-h-1b-visas-in-2013.html)

It's pretty disingenuous to claim there isn't a US worker, the companies have
no intent to hire an American. Their entire business model is built around
outsourcing the work. Now if you want to talk to me about legalizing farm
workers I have no problem with that. I think it's pretty disgusting we have
this shadow economy built on third class workers that we all benefit from and
know exists. Unfortunately they don't have the tech industry lobbying for them
like the H-1B holders do. There's a reason Silicon Valley lobbies for more
H-1bs but not Greencards: [http://online.wsj.com/articles/michael-s-malone-
the-self-inf...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/michael-s-malone-the-self-
inflicted-u-s-brain-drain-1413414239)

The problem with freedom of labor and open borders is that it's usually just
one way. How many Americans are going to work abroad in India? How many
Canadians are going to work in China? It's feel-good rhetoric but ultimately
it's just an excuse to flood richer nations with workers from poorer nations.
I'd be all for this system if there was some kind of tit-for-tat program where
India gets as many visas given to them as they give to us proportionally--but
it will never happen. If STEM and engineers are so in demand why have their
wages stagnated? Why has the average income actually dropped in Silicon
Valley? There's a disconnect in what they claim is happening and what is
really happening.

~~~
zenogais
This is a great response. The economics of this aren't really that hard to
puzzle out. Why did Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, and others collude to
artificially lower worker wages?[1] The answer is simple, they were too damn
high and they wanted to use cutting costs as a means to grow profits and
deliver shareholder value. As a worker you simply have to realize this is
DIRECTLY AGAINST your best interests, regardless of the rhetoric about some
future where it's ultimately better for everyone. The H1B schemes debated here
as well as the push to expand computer science education online and make it
cheaper produce exist to produce a new pool of less skilled and therefore
cheaper laborers as part of a pretty simple longterm economic strategy -
programmers as the factory workers of the information economy. If you're a
business owner this is good, if you're a high-paid software engineer this is
bad.

[1]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/30/apple-
goo...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/30/apple-google-intel-
and-adobe-still-headed-for-trial-over-wage-collusion-pact/)

------
keerthiko
I think chanting "talent shortage" as many Silicon Valley tech companies do is
hurting the immigration reform cause rather than helping. Also lobbying to
increase the size of the pool makes no sense - it's just going to get fill the
insatiable desire of body shops like Wipro, Infosys, TCS etc that are the main
cause for tech salary undercuts -- by mass importing workers who jump ship
asap willing to take low pay.

One of the things we really need is for a skilled graduate or immigrant to be
allowed freedom of employment. This stops driving salaries down, because
employees then aren't bound to an employer to get their green card or maintain
their legal status (giving the employer freedom to put the salary where they
want because of desperation). Yes, the H1B portability exists in theory, but
in practice they're unusable - with only 60 days of legal unemployed time
between jobs, having to secure a new offer before initiating the transfer
process, and having any active green card application processes (which can
take more than 5 years usually) killed if you transfer, we might as well
pretend the portability option doesn't exist.

I would also like to note this reformed H1B shouldn't be awarded to the body-
shop-type employers (basically anyone employing over 40% immigrants _and_ over
100 people). Technically this clause exists today, but these body shop
companies have a lot of phantom "US Citizen" employees to bloat their total
employee numbers and then all the actual staff is imported. Those practices
need to be audited more closely at least for the larger companies and curbed.

At the very least, I think it makes sense for someone who has spent 4 or more
years in US in the capacity of a student to be given freedom of employability
a little more easily, without restricting them to having to go to one of very
few employees that can secure them a H1B visa now and commit the first 5-10
years of their career at that one place (or leave the country) to stop being
treated worse than illegal immigrants.

More importantly, I think the process needs to recognize the fact that there
is no room for company founders, other than the atrocious O1 process which is
expensive and time consuming and subjective. I personally believe anyone who
can demonstrate basic intent to create a job and shows qualifications for it
(maybe after operation of the company for some period of time) should be given
a visa with weird restrictions on salary and job title and whatnot, with an
audit clause for every 2 years or something. All the existing visa programs
are extremely constrained for most founder circumstances (which are quite
varied, because founders are supposed to be about finding creative ad hoc
solutions).

Disclaimer: Cofounder of a silicon valley startup gone digital nomad because
of 2 failed H1B attempts and not being able to justify 2-4 months company-wide
paychecks to apply for an O1+lawyer.

------
manticore_alpha
Look HNers, let's be honest with each other.

There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see
succeed in the Bay Area.

In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for
one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and
to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to
continue to get cheap labor.

It absolutely, positively hurts local labor - naturalized citizens - etc.
Without a doubt.

This is not a Xenophobic reaction, it's simply reality.

I've worked at multiple companies (managed their websites) -- where we would
temporarily post a job description to appear that it was a fair playing field
for local workers -- when in reality that position was definitely, absolutely
going to be filled by a cheaper, exploitable H1B visa position.

It happens all-the-fucking-time.

There's standard, normalized ways immigrants have come to the US for a long
time now. There's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area, provided you
can pay (and your ideas are interesting)

We also don't need any more of the divisive ethic-neuveau-ghettos we're seeing
in the south bay, cupertino and east bay with communities insulating
themselves rather than assimilating.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _There 's absolutely no talent shortage in the Bay Area, provided you can
> pay_

But this is precisely what defines an economic shortage. There's no shortage
of _anything_ , if the price offered is right.

I wonder if the discrepancy between supply and demand for labour in the Valley
has to do with the fact that, unlike most other industries[1], so many
companies aren't making money, and hence _can 't_ pay, but still demand much
labour? It seems like labour shortages are built into the system.

[1] Speculation. What are some examples of companies with billion-dollar
valuations and no-profits, outside SV?

~~~
stretchwithme
Definition of shortage on Google: a state or situation in which something
needed cannot be obtained in sufficient amounts.

Doesn't mention anything about not paying the market price.

Those not willing to pay the market price can't buy a loaf of bread.

It is prices that incentivize people to provide what we need.

And when the bubble pops, prices will tell people the opposite.

Either way, its just a market condition that entrepreneurs have to deal with,
just as they deal with all of the other things that change all the time.

It is unlikely a robot will ever be able to do the job of entrepreneur.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _Doesn 't mention anything about not paying the market price._

That's the flaw in that definition. Price is the most important factor.

Edit: If price isn't accounted for then what isn't in a shortage at prices
just greater than free?

~~~
unprepare
A shortage is a lack of supply, a company unwilling to pay above $X is not a
shortage of supply, it is a shortage of demand.

If we have a shortage of carrots, we dont have enough carrots at ANY price. If
people are unwilling to pay 5$/LB for carrots but thats what they cost in the
store, that is not a shortage.

What this discussion is about is substitute goods[1] replacing standard goods.
In this case US workers are the standard goods, and they are being replaced by
foreign workers, or substitute goods at lower cost.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good)

~~~
hnnewguy
> _A shortage is a lack of supply_

No, a shortage is the discrepancy between the quantity supplied and quantity
demanded at a given price.

When wages offered are too low, there is a shortage of labour supply. Increase
those wages and that shortage disappears.

> _If we have a shortage of carrots, we dont have enough carrots at ANY
> price._

This is simply not true.

> _If people are unwilling to pay 5$ /LB for carrots but thats what they cost
> in the store, that is not a shortage._

The shortage of carrot occurs at every price below $5/lb. You cannot talk
about shortages in the economic sense without prices. Period.

I'm not sure why people are insistent on arguing the semantics of the word
"shortage", rather than the far more interesting supply/demand dynamics
underpinning the markets being discussed.

~~~
unprepare
I did some looking around and you're absolutely correct about economic
shortages.

From wikipedia: "In most cases, a shortage will compel firms to increase the
price of a product until it reaches market equilibrium. Sometimes, however,
external forces cause more permanent shortages—in other words, there is
something preventing prices from rising or otherwise keeping supply and demand
balanced."

In this case, the H1-B visas are the external force, and are preventing supply
and demand from being balanced. Basically because of the availability of
cheaper labor, companies are willing to pay less for ALL labor which creates
the shortage.

My completely misremembered thinking was that simply because they don't WANT
to pay a higher wage, does not create a lack of labor - but i see know that it
does in fact create an economic shortage of labor AT THAT PRICE. I was
thinking of 'labor shortage' meaning that there is not enough actual people
qualified to perform a job; when really in this case it is much more
reflecting employers unwillingness to increase wages to the level that
qualified people would be willing to compete.

thanks for the discussion!

------
michaelochurch
It's about a mix of things.

First of all, intern salaries are typically set at ~90-100 percent of full-
time salary (but without bonus or equity). So these people who are freaking
out about intern salaries are missing the point. They assume that if "even an
intern" makes $8,000 per month, that every full-time employee makes $200k+.
No, it's not like that. It's like this: we properly pay interns with an entry-
level salary, unlike the soft industries (e.g. publishing, media) that have an
oversupply of qualified but unimpressive hipsters who'll take the job for
free, and we pay interns for their work because it's the right thing to do,
and (for as much flak as I give the tech industry) that's one area where we do
the right thing.

It annoyed me when Valleywag attacked intern salaries. There's so much to
impeach the Valley for, but paying interns properly isn't one of them.

Second, we don't really know what software salaries would be without the H1-B
program. The program may or may not be depressing wages, but we don't know
right now.

Third, I'm all for high-talent immigration, and I'm sure that there are good
companies who treat their H1-B workers well. Some don't, and it's the body
shops that are getting the negative attention.

With the bad actors, more than it is about costs _or_ talent at the bad-actor
companies, it's about _deference to authority_ (or, "disinclination to
agitate"). The H1-B program keeps the worker captive, and that's more valuable
to the company than any wage depression. Programmer salaries aren't high
enough for anyone to care about shaving a few percentage points off entry-
level figures, but a lot of these tech companies do want people who are
captive-- or, better still, young (age discrimination is a part of this issue,
as well) and perceived to be culturally disinclined to challenge managerial
authority.

My problem, on this issue, isn't with the H1-B program, although it should be
reformed. (A high-talent immigration program must, by definition, be
unconditional on month-by-month employment status.) I certainly don't have a
problem with a company like AeroFS that needs to hire a foreign worker to fill
a niche. However, I take umbrage to the assholes who complain about a general
"talent shortage" but won't look twice at a programmer over 35. They're being
disingenuous to the point of being unethical. Instead of being honest about
their economic interests ("good people cost more than we want to pay") they're
attempting to play the Existential Risk Card ("talent shortage"). It's vile to
make that claim.

~~~
wrexsoule
> The H1-B program keeps the worker captive

Let's be serious a few minutes, no H1-B worker is held captive at all. I've
been on H1-B for 4 years and still on it, and have changed employer twice with
no issues.

The only case you can make is that if a H1-B is applying for a Green Card then
he can have to wait a while before moving, but it's nothing to do with H1-B
itself.

~~~
sriram_sun
The Valley is a lot more open about H1-B transfers than the rest of the
country is. I made the mistake of working the mid-west for a number of years
where job hopping was not as rampant as the Valley and generally looked down
upon. Also, every time you jump to a new employer keep in mind that your Green
Card clock gets reset and your H1-B's 6-7 yr. limit stays the same. Having
spent a significant portion of my youth here, my goal was to become a
naturalized citizen. For most H1-Bs this is one of their major goals. The
questions you'll have to deal with are always a bunch of What ifs.. What if I
get laid off tomorrow? I've one month to find a job. What if my employer soft
pedals on the Green Card application? What if my manager turns out to be an
ass and my Green Card is only 2 years away? In that situation, I am pretty
much a captive. It even took Alexandrescu (author of Modern C++ Design) about
16 years to become a citizen. Not acceptable.

Now Yahoo is closing it's India office and bringing a bunch of people to
Sunnyvale. Not sure how they are going to do that with all the lottery bull
going on.

YMMV.

~~~
wrexsoule
Yes in the case of Green Card I agree you can become a captive if you're still
waiting for your I-140. That being said, the DoL is currently reviewing the
rules and should allow portability of the PERM in the near future as directed
by Obama's announcement last Thursday, so when this finally happens there
should be no longer talk of captivity even for Green Cards since PERM really
doesn't take that long (unles syou get an audit...)

------
mkramlich
I'd argue that both the pro and con positions on this issue are correct.
Because there are, roughly speaking, two sub-markets within the larger unified
whole. Let's call them the upper market and the lower market.

The upper market is about the supply-vs-demand of the _best_
engineers/programmers/techies. The lower market is composed and driven by the
supply-vs-demand for the _cheapest_ people who can ostensibly fill those
roles, however poorly, as long as they are (or appear to be, in near term)
adequate for the need at hand.

Therefore speaking in broad strokes: yes, if you're a US citizen/resident
whose skills/talents/accomplishment are effectively in that lower market, then
globalization is likely to hurt you in terms of employment prospects in a tech
field. However, if you're in the upper market supply-side, globalization is
more likely to help, esp if you market yourself very publically and globally,
and independently from any specific employer -- for example, get yourself some
kind of top ranking on some forum or in search results on a given topic, or
write a book on it, create/lead or contribute to a popular FOSS project, etc.
You may not have full control of your destiny, we each have different mixes of
strengths or handicaps, but to some extent you do have a choice as to whether
to put yourself into that upper market's supply pool, or the lower. And there
are lots of people world-wide desperate for money or to get their foot in the
door, thus they flood that lower market, even if later some percentage of
those same folks may transition into the upper one. And a new "sucker" is born
every second, world-wide.

The OP's author is clearly writing from the POV of that upper market's demand
side. He's correct for his segment. A different conclusion about the impact of
H1B visas (and off-shoring) can also be correct, if about that lower market's
supply-side.

All good. No conflict.

disclaimer/caveat: obviously speaking in broad strokes, and thinking at
strategic level. (And I wish I never had to point that out on HN.)

------
mbondr
H1B is about bigotry, not costs, and especially talent. It's about a lack of
young, practically white, males.

~~~
10098
wat

