
@2gov - Visas for startup founders movement - emontero1
http://2gov.org/visa
======
johnnybgoode
This appears to have started with PG's Founder Visa essay. Be sure to read the
original HN thread about that essay:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908>

At the time, I thought PG's idea was so flawed that I nearly registered just
to point out why. Fortunately, bokonist did a great job of explaining what was
wrong with the idea in that thread.

~~~
netsp
Thanks for pointing to that thread. Bokonist makes a strong case against
accreditation bodies in general, barriers to entry and the associated slippery
slope.

While I am sympathetic to that idea, we have to remember that the Founder Visa
is a type of liberalisation, not a type of barrier. The solution mightn't be
perfect, but it could be better then no founder immigration. While
accreditation is possibly bad in general, it may be worth it if it pokes a
hole in the immigration barrier.

However, I think that there is a strong case against startup visas
specifically. I think you would have to be willing to live with quite serious
market distortions if you are prepared to support something like this.

I made this argument on a previous thread:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823006>

~~~
socratees
So if a VC firm overseas funds a startup, who gets the visa? Do you think the
VC's overseas will be generous enough to let the founder get a US visa while
they remain at their home country?

~~~
netsp
If a company is funded overseas, they probably want to stay where they are and
the investor probably agrees.

A VC fund can probably pick up and move to the States if they wanted to
anyway.

------
sachinag
There are a bunch of issues with the proposal, but hey:

#Let's say someone comes over, starts a company with $500K and it fails. Then
what? Legally, they would have to leave at that point, right? If not, why not?
Brad says no, they just have to found another company. That makes me
squeamish; while they may be working for themselves, it's not that different
than bonding to a trade.

#How many founders can you bring over for one company? What's going to stop
them from setting up a consulting shop instead of a product company? We've
seen that consulting jobs are very clearly 1-to-1 displacement of American
citizens.

#There are a lot of issues with the verification of "bona fide founder"
status. I get that VCs are OK with being gatekeepers (yeah, I plead guilty for
my one year on the dark side), but it's really distasteful to hand over any
part of immigration to non-government officials. More here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908>

#The pro arguments now are based on anecdotes, not data. There is no data on
how many jobs we're "losing out on" by not having a more founder-friendly
immigration system.

#Lastly, there's a solution that works right now: find an American co-founder.
It's not pretty, as you have a distributed company in the early days, but it
works.

I acknowledge the intelligence of the tactical decision to give up on H1-Bs
and go after changes to the EB-5, but America would _be a better place_ if we
actually reformed the H1-B process. I do wish Brad, Eric, Dave, etc. would
tackle the H1-B elephant in the room publicly. We shouldn't be trying to steal
startups from other countries; we should be trying to cultivate an environment
where everyone here legally - citizens and immigrants on their path to
citizenship - can start one and have it thrive.

Also, and everyone's heard me on this before - this group would do a lot more
for startups if they channeled this energy into healthcare reform. Job lock-in
is real and affects many, many more potential startup founders than
immigration policy. VCs/investors from outside SF/NY ( _cough_ Brad Feld
_cough_ Josh Kopelman _cough_ ) would especially be credible, useful voices on
a matter that's actually front and center right now.

~~~
gruseom
These "objections" are just getting out of hand.

 _How many founders can you bring over for one company?_

That's hardly an issue. The optimal number of founders is basically known. You
can argue about 2, 3, or 4, but it's obviously way less than 10.

 _The pro arguments now are based on anecdotes, not data_

The proposal is based on reasoning, not anecdotes, and it seems like pretty
clear reasoning to me. The anti arguments are a lot of spaghetti thrown at a
wall. The current thread is a good example.

 _There are a lot of issues with the verification of "bona fide founder"
status._

That's not an argument against the proposal, it's an argument in favor of
sensible policy design - something that is lacking in the status quo.

 _there's a solution that works right now: find an American co-founder._

A profoundly ignorant statement. Arbitrary co-founder relationships are a
predictor of failure. "Marry an American" would be better advice, and it's
horrible advice. (Edit: I mean horrible advice for startup immigration! I'm
all in favor of marrying Americans generally :))

 _We shouldn't be trying to steal startups from other countries_

Yes "we" should. That's one of the most intelligent things a country that
wants to build wealth could do.

 _this group would do a lot more for startups if they channeled this energy
into healthcare reform_

Visa issues are a huge obstacle facing startups (edit: and startup investors);
there are many, many examples. How many times does "health care" appear on
such a list? I've never heard it cited once.

~~~
jhancock
If I were an immigrant from China or India under this new visa program, the
first thing I would do in hiring programmers is fly back home and crank up a
top quality, low cost team. As things progressed, I would take it further:
anything not absolutely necessary to be within 50 miles of my investor would
be done back in my home country.

As an investor, I would fully expect/encourage these founders to behave like
this.

The typical cultural and communication problems of outsourcing do not apply in
this case. You are taking someone from their home country that will have
experience working with their own people and processes.

> "Visa issues are a huge obstacle facing startups (edit: and startup
> investors); there are many, many examples."

Can you please provide these examples?

> "How many times does "health care" appear on such a list? I've never heard
> it cited once."

Quite a bit actually. Given how much Health Care reform is in the news, I find
it surprising the proponents of the founders visa didn't think about this
issue already.

~~~
gruseom
_Can you please provide these examples?_

I know at least a dozen people who have personally experienced this, but I'm
not going to name anybody. I also have read and heard many statements by
people like PG, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld - people who really know about startups
- who mention this as a key issue. I have not ever heard anyone bring up
health insurance as this _specific_ kind of impediment before, until a few
moments ago when people suddenly started mentioning it on HN as a way to
monkey-wrench a completely different issue. Find me someone who's made 20 or
more angel investments who agrees that the visa issue is less significant to
new startups than health care, and I will grant the legitimacy of the
objection.

(This is not to say that health insurance isn't a big issue in general, though
personally it strikes me as more of an issue for people who want to switch
jobs than found startups - that's important, but not the same thing.)

Edit: in fairness, I should add that many of those people I know personally
did eventually get visas, but it was expensive, difficult, and distracting -
to such a degree that everyone who goes through the process says it is insane.

~~~
jhancock
I have heard from a few investors that immigration issues caused problems.
When I query about what percent of founders this applies to, I hear numbers
like 10% or 20%. What numbers are you hearing?

Unfortunately your challenge is flawed of finding investors that have
experienced health care as more of a problems than immigration. The health
care argument is that people won't consider quitting their day job because of
this problem so they never reach the point of showing up on an investor's
radar. I know far more well qualified U.S. citizens that would love to start
their own business than there is money to fund them. Health care is generally
the number one reason cited for them not leaving BigCo.

The founder's visa argument is there are not enough founders to invest in in
the U.S. Some people, myself included, are simply trying to point out that not
only may there be far more than immigration reform could provide, but that
legislation is currently in progress that might alleviate a big part of the
reason they are not "on the market".

I am commonly "self-employed", at least from the perspective of Health Care
insurers. I have insurance, but mostly to appease my wife. Do you know the
stats on cancellation for an "individual" policy if you actually do get a
serious illness? Its well over 50%. I know my insurance is most probably
useless, as I said, I pay for it to appease my better half who is more risk
averse. Most founder-wanna-bes do not have enough money socked away to spend
as I do.

I agree that immigration process is insane and unfair to the immigrant. One
big problem I have with this proposal is it is highly self-serving to investor
desires and doesn't put leverage on the more important issue of simply
treating all legal skilled immigrants more appropriately.

~~~
gruseom
This is one of the few comments in the thread that makes sense to me.

I haven't asked anyone about percentages, but one thing we can say is that
whatever the percentage is of foreign-founded startups trying to relocate to
the US, that would be roughly the number who are having trouble doing so.

As I pointed out in another comment, the best investors say that their
bottleneck is finding good startups to invest in. Objections that reduce to
the idea that these people don't know their own business (or are lying) don't
hold much water with me. It also seems obviously true that a demographically
small number of new startups (a few thousand) would provide huge economic
leverage. (Sure, their investors would get richer, but the whole country would
get richer. This isn't a financial shell game, it's about creating value by
making things.) So the question reduces to the design problem of figuring out
a good way to identify authentic startups and minimize gaming of the system.
That isn't _prima facie_ insoluble, so all these arguments that it can't be
done, at the very beginning of the discussion, just seem disingenuous to me.

What you say about health care from your own experience is very clear, and I
certainly hope that that situation gets replaced by a more rational and
sustainable one.

Edit: by the way, there's a problem with this:

 _Unfortunately your challenge is flawed of finding investors that have
experienced health care as more of a problems than immigration_

That's not my challenge. My challenge was "Find me someone who's made 20 or
more angel investments who _agrees that_ the visa issue is less significant to
new startups than health care" (emphasis added), in other words, a leading
investor who has gone through the same thought process as you guys and arrived
at your conclusion that the HC impediment is more important than the visa one.
If the argument is a good one, it ought to be possible to find someone who
knows early-stage startup investment inside-out and agrees with it. This is a
significant point because one thing we know about the business of startup
investment is that it doesn't work the way most people think it does. By the
way, I'm quite willing to change my mind about this, but not as long as I see
all the most credible people lined up on one side of the issue.

~~~
jhancock
This has been a healthy debate. I only harp on the HC issue because I think
its symptomatic of the community not thinking outside the box enough. I don't
think its the only issue or possibly the largest one. Usually, the weekend
posts on HN are a bit anemic, but not so this weekend. Here are two other
articles and threads discussing troubles in startup-land:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833234> and
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832672>

Taken as a whole, there is much room to discuss how to create a more effective
environ for innovation, job, and wealth creation.

------
fryduck
Frankly, a lot of us aren't even funded by VCs anymore. Boot strapping and
staying frugal has helped. I don't really have it in me to go grovelling to
VCs anymore. DONE.

So whats in it for the individual startup chaps? Or will VCs continue to
dominate everything?

------
BerislavLopac
Personally I would like to get an US visa, startup or not -- but this is plain
ridiculous. As I understand it, the VCs are running out of good projects to
invest in in the States, so they want the hill to come to Mohammad, i.e. the
founders to get to the US.

US is a lovely country I'd very much like to visit, but why don't the VCs
simply pack up themselves and go to other countries and fund startups there? I
understand that they would find it difficult to follow their investments in
foreign environments, but there is a number of solutions they could combine,
from having trusted local experts at location, to combining western legal
entities with the local technical expertise (Seedcamp's Zemanta, from
Slovenia, is a good example).

------
ardit33
I see over and over naysayers of this visa claiming all kinds of fraud that
can happen, and all kind of reasons why it is a bad idea, without really
addressing on how to make it fair.

To the all naysayers of the visa, there are easier system's to game the
system. Marriage. That's right. I have a friend that did it (with way less
than 20k). Sure there are some steps to prevent fraud (even interviews), but
that doesn't stop most people getting married just for citizenship, except the
most obvious cases.

According to the 'nay-sayers' logic, we should stop giving green
card/citizenship through marriage, b/c maybe 15% of them are fraud.

If you really really want to live in the US, and have about 50k, you will find
somebody that will marry (my friend found it for a lot less money). No need to
go through this Visa problem.

It is kinda wierd, but it is much easier for a less educated person to game
the system, then for somebody that is more educated (most under the table
jobs,are blue collar ones).

In any way, saying we shouldn't let the Founder Visa b/c there might be
potential fraud, is pure FUD. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt, just for your own
little short sighted self.

If you enjoy an america without immigrants, a go live in West Virginia, or
Alabama.

------
ilkhd2
Be ready for influx of "startup founders", that would bring to the country
taxi cab drivers, gardeners, all kind of "engineers" from India, China,
Mexico, North Africa and so on.. Did you forget that very recent scandal with
Satyam... They did what I just described...

~~~
davemc500hats
not sure i understand your concern? the proposal we're working on is a
modification to the EB-5 Visa, which currently requires a $1M investment (or a
$500K investment in economically targeted area).

even with a lower capital rqmt of say $100K-$250K, i don't think many people
would be willing to put up that kind of cash for a taxi driver.

on the other hand, it might be useful to make sure the source(s) of capital
are from accredited and/or institutional investors, in order to prevent abuse.

~~~
joe_the_user
It saddens me to see so much effort put into this kind of proposal. I favor
loosened immigration conditions but this is a poorly thought-out scheme that
seeks to create private initiative via government intervention.

It doesn't just threaten to pollute the 'immigration space' with folks trying
to seem like 'founders', it also pollutes the start-up space with these folks.
If someone is 'creating jobs' with the goal of securing a VISA, they could put
out ads (which real job seekers will try to answer), then hire only their
friends, get the wages paid kicked mostly back to them and have a VISA pretty
cheaply since they would get back a good proportion of their money.

Sure, you could have regulators looking for people who did stuff like this but
it would get clunky and I'm sure folks could think of umpteen other schemes to
get around this. I'm not a Austrian or free-market nut but I think the
Austrian arguments are _most_ plausible when governments try to micro-manage
enterprises.

It would simpler to elimenate h1b's, skip the 'founders' and give N VISAs to
individuals with documented skills and M to individuals who just pay a million
dollars directly. That would bring skilled workers and investors here without
a lot of falderal. If you wanted to make sure they were never unemployed, make
them put up a bond.

And Taxi drivers can make up to $100K/year if they are committed (a lot of
them work literally 24 hours/day). A beach-head in the States is worth a lot
in many parts of the world since once you arrive you can bring your entire
family. $100K for ten people to immigrate here is a good deal. It's not
something I'm even opposed to _as such_ \- my father and ex-wife were both
immigrants. In fact, the main thing I oppose is the way present system creates
distortions which helps neither the economy nor the immigrants.

~~~
miloshh
As pointed out by gruseom below, if somebody wants to game the system, they
will come on a tourist visa and simply not leave. I don't think these
convoluted scenarios of possible abuse are realistic at all. Furthermore, if
the founder's visa law is any good, it will not _require_ the founders to
create jobs. It will simply assume that from 2500 startups a year, many will
create a lot of jobs.

~~~
tptacek
Which is a faulty argument, because you flat-out can't work in the US on a
tourist visa.

~~~
gruseom
Whoa there. I brought up the tourist visa as an obvious way to enter the
country and then work _illegally_ , to answer the bogus objection that a
founders' visa would lead to more illegals stealing American jobs: all that
would be is an expensive and convoluted way to do what anyone willing to break
that law can already do cheaply and trivially right now. And it wouldn't even
work as well, since your name would be associated with the company you'd
"founded", leaving a trail that the other method wouldn't.

Edit: I suppose I should mention that no, I am not condoning anyone who enters
a country on a tourist visa and works illegally.

------
ilkhd2
Citing Paul:

By definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans: it
could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't work for existing
companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact they'd cause there to be more
jobs for Americans, because the companies they started would hire more
employees as they grew. \----- Of course they will not be hired by other
companies...Legally...But USA is not the country where illegal employment is
punished.

Every time when you open access to your (rich) country to poorer people think
about how the system can be abused.

~~~
gruseom
_Of course they will not be hired by other companies...Legally...But USA is
not the country where illegal employment is punished_

People who choose to work illegally do so today by arriving for free on a
tourist visa. Why would anyone put up capital and start a company in order to
do it?

~~~
miloshh
It's sad how the founders visa isn't even close to reality yet, and already
has vocal opponents bringing up bogus reasons why it's a bad thing. How long
will it take until somebody complains about "foreigners taking away startup
opportunities from Americans"?

~~~
joe_the_user
Uh, while some folks may bring up racist or otherwise ridiculous objection to
this idea, sachinag, bokonist and others have brought up well thought-out
objections that I haven't seen answered with much thought (the claim that
tourist visas are the only thing subject to abuse seems hardly creditable but
I'll argue more if someone fleshes out this one existing counter-argument).

It seems like the founder's visa already has a lot of emotional traction with
people but immigration isn't something should be decided by emotional
resonance but by well thought-out arguments - if you take the discussion to
the emotional level, things won't go well for those favoring immigration.

~~~
miloshh
The thoughtful objections have not been against the idea as such, but mostly
against the proposal that a board of investors or government officials would
decide who is good enough. That would indeed a problem - startups that VCs or
government approve would likely be the ones immitating the previous big thing,
rather than building the next big thing. But I think a board is not necessary.
In my opinion, all that's needed is that the founders

1\. have bachelor's degrees, 2\. register a corporation, 3\. start with at
least $X in the company account.

The value of X is up to debate, but it should not matter which investors they
received the money from. Details can be worked out.

~~~
joe_the_user
Many well-informed criticism of state actions aren't against the goals of the
intervention as such but merely against all the possible implementation those
goals.

