
Dear British Government: You've Screwed Up (Startup) Visas Badly - ig1
http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/11/dear-british-government-youve-screwed.html
======
gargs
Seems like what the US government is trying to do with the whole H1/L1 visas.
Companies like to have immobile employees that they know would not go back to
their home country. At the same time, it plays well with the whole immigration
debate because no one complains about it, what with the lobbying efforts
keeping it down to a murmur.

The startup visa scheme is another such proposition, but at a grander level.
Banks want entrepreneurs that won't give up on a bad idea, but would instead
keep toiling away rather than have to move their entire family back to their
home country.

No one wants to speak from the perspective of an employee because, frankly,
the biggest proponents have never been ideal employees. What kind of a
talented engineer would want to put themselves into a situation where they
lose their freedom to switch careers or engage in a personal idea? So sure,
there is a shortage of talent, but not because of a lack of immigrants.

~~~
to
thats how it is...

what bugs me the most on my h1b visa is that the time youre in the country you
cant build a life for yourself. first its 3 years, than you can extend another
three years but after those six years they kick you out. of course after five
years you can apply for a green card but that takes two years. not to speak of
the cut down on time when you switch jobs. i recently changed my employer
after two years. now my last year of the first part of the visa got cut out
and directly extended. giving me together five years in the country.

now what do i do in three years? in sept 2013 my visa ends. no extension. how
can you live like that? knowing you leave your life, friends, everything
behind in three years.

and the whole new investor start up blah visa is a punch in my face. when you
generate a milliondollar revenue or find an investor that invests a million or
more you get citizenship. come again? citizenship? i lead start ups for my
last employer which gave me an astronomical salary around 300-600k a year and
the start ups generated under the companies umbrella way more than 20m this
year. where the FUCK is my citizenship?

the whole topic just makes me angry.

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pc
Somewhat unrelated, but I was struck by a line in The Economist's article
about the visas in this week's issue:

 _"The spontaneous rise of Silicon Roundabout might have persuaded the
government to leave well alone. Instead, David Cameron recently unveiled a
plan to support it. As well as tinkering with the legal framework in which
such businesses operate—by creating updated “entrepreneur visas” to bypass
ill-judged new immigration restrictions, for example—the government has
persuaded technology titans such as Google and Cisco to invest. Soon BT will
bring super-fast broadband to the area; McKinsey, a consultancy, will share
management expertise."_ [1]

"McKinsey, a consultancy, will share management expertise"—well then. I don't
know how the tech start-ups will contain their jubilation.

[1] <http://www.economist.com/node/17581635>

~~~
viraptor
> The spontaneous rise of Silicon Roundabout

Was it? I was under the impression that the whole idea was pushed by the
government and officially planned from the start...

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petercooper
A related issue - and one reason this policy has gone through without much
complaint - is the growing negativity and dislike of immigrants by the
majority of the UK public. Think I'm joking? YouGov found 55% agreed with the
statement "migrants have changed UK for the worse": <http://yfrog.com/mk3fqfj>
(and only 28% disagreeing)

Protectionism, my arse. These policies are fueled by xenophobia, the like of
which even respectable Brits frequently agree, even if they say nothing about
it in public (I've had these rows with people in my own family and social
groups who I'd never had believed could be so xenophobic).

~~~
notahacker
Agree. Other immigration restrictions likely to be implemented make no
economic sense at all, like capping numbers of overseas students, whose higher
fees subsidise our allegedly underfunded higher education system.

It was evident throughout the election campaign that being "tough" on
immigration was perceived as more important than being "fair".

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sciboy
Is there any data that supports this blog posts contention that the best
developers are in the UK on tier 1 visa's? If this were true, surely a large
portion of the successful uk startups should be founded by tier-1 recipients?

~~~
muriithi
His "data" is purely anecdotal since his sample is limited to those developers
he has worked with. However it is possible that you can have many good
immigrant developers and a disproportionately lower number who go ahead and
found startups.

Not every developer wants to be a startup founder.

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rwmj
Why don't people just work remotely? I've been involved in employing 3 people
for Red Hat in the last few months. All are remote, I've not met any of them
and I don't intend to meet them in the near future.

~~~
iloveponies
It isn't just about the job, it's the location. I moved to the other side of
the world to be outside of my home country, and to be closer to my partner.

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naithemilkman
The problem is systemic.

1\. Startups can't recruit overseas students or highly skilled workers anymore
without applying for a tier 2 sponsorship license. Talking about lead time of
1 1/2 months and jumping through admin hoops for approval.

2\. Local students are starting school with a bigger debt due to increases in
tuition fees. Now if I was a young talented programmer with a big debt
(average debt of a student now is around £18K. I estimate this to increase to
about £24K), the glowing lights of the city looks very attractive.

~~~
tomjen3
Is it really so bad? 18k is a lot of money, but it isn't that large a run for
a good university graduate, and it is very little compared to what US
graduates can expect to pay; yet they start plenty of companies.

Might the reason not be that the difference lies with the people and not the
environment?

~~~
_grrr
Student fees should not put someone off starting a start-up in the UK because
you don't have to pay anything back until you're earning > £21k, so a founder
wouldn't have to pay anything until the business could afford to pay them.

However, there are other reasons that deter people from launching start-ups in
the UK, 1) it's expensive - London is very expensive, general living costs are
higher than the US 2) The City is a disproportionately large draw for UK
graduates, finance is a larger percent of the economy, compared to say the US.

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WildUtah
>>>The Tier-1 visa didn't surpress salaries

And you wonder why a Conservative government would want to eliminate them? The
fact explains itself.

Do these apply only to foreigners from outside Europe? I read that EU member
nationals can form a startup in any EU country.

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codeglomeration
That was my main reason for not picking UK when deciding to work abroad, even
though that was my first preference because of the English language.
Eventually I ended up moving to the Netherlands, because of their more liberal
policies.

Your visa being tied to an employer can pretty easily turn into exploitation,
if you end up picking the wrong employer.

But seriously, even worse is the appearance of how you're being treated. Why
would I want to live there under those conditions?

This measure can't really attract talent. I don't see what good developers -
in their right mind - would accept those terms. There are other better
options.

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sudhirc
UK government does not want people coming in on Tier 1 and compete in open
market; however they do not have any problems issuing Tier 2 which is intra
company transfer.Only criteria is that income of employee should not be less
than £40K/year. Do they want salaries to stabilize at £40K?

~~~
ig1
FYI. The Tier-2 category covers a range of "company sponsored" skilled visas,
not just intra-company transfers.

Source:<http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/workingintheuk/tier2/>

