

America's Genius Glut - naftaliharris
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/opinion/americas-genius-glut.html

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pg
This is so mistaken. How could anyone not notice there is a talent war
happening in Silicon Valley? The single biggest problem facing just about
every one of the most successful startups we've funded is finding more good
programmers.

And I know many startups that are eager to get visas for people they want to
hire, and would have zero interest in having employees that felt trapped at
their company.

(I had to go and investigate what the Economic Policy Institute was.
Apparently it's funded by a consortium of labor unions. Odd that they would
bother about this, since few to none of the jobs involved are union jobs.)

~~~
naftaliharris
I was shocked to read this as well. This summer I went to meetups where after
talking with somebody new for five minutes, they would say, "By the way, we're
hiring...", to which I would reply, "Yeah, so are we!"

About half of my classmates (in a Statistics PhD program) are foreigners.
These are literally the brightest statisticians of their year from their
respective countries, and making it even the least bit hard for them to stay
in the US is a big mistake. We could use their talent!

~~~
eshvk
> About half of my classmates (in a Statistics PhD program) are foreigners.
> These are literally the brightest statisticians of their year from their
> respective countries, and making it even the least bit hard for them to stay
> in the US is a big mistake. We could use their talent!

What makes you think they are going to have a hard time to stay in the U.S.?
Honestly if they are good, literally stapling a green card to their PhD once
they graduate is the only thing that is going to be easier than the current
system. Let me explain: You finish your PhD, you can work for a period of 27
months for any related employer under your F1 visa, then you can work for a
period of 6 years on an H1B. While this is happening, your employer can file
for a Green Card for you. Hell, if you are "literally the brightest
statisticians of their year", you can apply for a Green Card as a person of
extraordinary ability.

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GFischer
As explained almost everywhere, losing your job under an H1B visa is a huge
pain.

The brightest student in my class is working for Microsoft on an H1B. He's
relatively happy and he's managed to "switch jobs" within Microsoft, but he's
unable to leave.

That's not a great way to encourage the best and brightest. I know this guy
would be awesome for several Silicon Valley startups for example, but he
literally has to stay in Microsoft or another high-stability company.

No idea if he would get a Green Card as a person of extraordinary ability, I
believe him to be, but don't know the requisites.

My country has FAR less stringent requirements (yet we're not really a talent
destination :) ).

~~~
eshvk
> As explained almost everywhere, losing your job under an H1B visa is a huge
> pain.

This is exactly my problem with the H1B. The solution to this is not to have a
glut of more H1Bs but to make the H1B a job portable six year visa much like a
European employment visa.

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chrisbennet
I wonder if more bright engineers would actually solve SV's labor problem?
Startups are like lotteries and engineers are their customers. A certain
percentage of engineers are going to want to start their own lotteries rather
than play someone else's. Increasing the number of engineers won't change that
percentage. Currently, these "lotteries" don't have a great payout and
unsurprisingly, they have a difficult time finding "customers".

Currently these "lotteries" are unwilling or unable to increase their payouts.
Unless you can create a glut of customers/engineers that are somehow
constrained from starting their own lotteries, I don't see why the lack of
engineers willing to work at startups would change.

It's a little like complaining that "we can't find interns willing to work for
free" when the interns have better alternatives.

~~~
eshvk
This is an excellent point. There are enough engineers out there who reach a
certain stage in their life (kids, family, bored of stupid "benefits" like
xbox, free lunches and worthless stock options) basically say fuck you, pay
me. It is not that startups can't find people at any price, it is just that
really really good people could work on your interesting problem but they
could also work on another interesting problem that pays them a market rate.

> Currently these "lotteries" are unwilling or unable to increase their
> payouts. Unless you can create a glut of customers/engineers that are
> somehow constrained from starting their own lotteries, I don't see why the
> lack of engineers willing to work at startups would change.

I don't know whether you made this point unknowingly or not: However, the
whole deal with the way an H1B is designed right now is that it is close to
impossible to start your own lottery. You have to sponsor your own visa which
the way nascent startups work is close to impossible.

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zurn
This article seems to confuse degrees with "genius". It's mostly just toil and
it's not surprising people fearing deportation are better motivated to acquire
them and less choosy about jobs they take.

