
Universities Are Leveraging H-1B Visas to Fuel Startup Hubs - exotree
https://news.crunchbase.com/news/how-universities-are-leveraging-h-1b-visas-to-fuel-startup-hubs/
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shoguning
Where to begin?

1) Universities, and I mean through official channels, are not great at
creating startups. I'd rather they focus on basic research. No, Google was not
started 'by' Stanford, etc. The biggest company I know of to come out of a
university (founded by a professor) is Broadcom in 1991. Anyone know of a
bigger one?

2) Be skeptical of the "$416,442,265" in funding claim. How many of those
companies would have gotten funding anyways? This is a tactic incubator
programs use: claim affiliation with a successful startup that's about to get
a lot more funding. Then the startup gets to employ a "co-founder" for
peanuts.

3) I don't think universities do a great job of protecting the rights
contingent labor. See: grad school. I can see this program as being very
abusive to participants.

Further, this is _exactly_ the type of thing that H-1B critics would point to
as an abuse of the system. Honestly it's odd seeing this done out in the open
and celebrated.

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rjzzleep
H1B is abusive in nature. Most of the times it's a take it and shut up Visa.
Sometimes you get a "mm we might start a naturalization process, but if we
don't like you probably not".

A lot of H1B workers ended up with quite a bit of issues, a lot of them never
got the Green Card process started. So, I don't see how this could be worse.
At least they claim that they will help you so you might be more inclined to
put it in your contract.

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justfor1comment
This point is glossed over in the article but H1B visa workers cannot start
their own companies and employ themselves. The best case scenario for anyone
on this program is spend 2-3 years in university while building a network. You
can't work on your startup during this phase. Get a GC and then start working
on your startup idea. For some countries like China and India GC takes more
than 10 years so this program is not an option for people in those countries.

~~~
giobox
> “Get a GC and then start working on your startup idea”

Practically speaking for many foreign tech workers, a visa such as the H1-B is
pretty much the first step to getting a GC eventually, so advising they skip
the H1 and go “get a GC” isn’t going to be all that helpful for many.

It’s pretty hard to go straight to a GC for most foreigners, even among those
with excellent academic qualifications. How hard this is also often depends
entirely on your passport lottery result - be unfortunate enough to be born
with an Indian one and you are easily looking at a minimum 10 year wait times
in a great many cases, and to live and work in US during that period you are
likely going to need some kind of work visa like the H1.

Even for the best case scenarios (passport from a country with a current GC
priority date etc) it still realistically often takes at least a year to
complete the GC process.

~~~
justfor1comment
I think you misinterpreted my comment. I never suggested skipping the H1B. I
was actually laying down the sequence of steps needed in this program. Join
Program on H1B -> Wait till GC approval -> Then start working for your
startup.

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let_var
This is quite brilliant. If quality of tech remains good, few interesting
results can be expected in years to come.

There are few challenges for the founder(s) - 1. splitting time (and focus)
between university duties and startup work will be tough. And 2. if a startup
fail to get traction within 1.5-2 years, and its founders are unable to secure
GC/extension, you can expect further dilution of focus.

~~~
donald123
According to the GEIR website, it only requires founders to spend 8 hours per
week on university duties. One day a week does not sound to bad.

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NTDF9
Lol, with so many legitimate H-1Bs getting denied, I doubt USCIS will approve
these visas.

Right now, US is bleeding talent either by losing H-1Bs (especially ones that
are educated in the US) and future university students.

Guess what this mass of population would do in their countries in the years
ahead?

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saltedonion
“the program invites foreign entrepreneurs to work part-time at a school,
either as a mentor or an adjunct professor. In return, entrepreneurs may get a
cap-exempt H-1B visa that gives them the latitude to work on their own
startups”

Seems like the bar to get accepted is pretty high

~~~
donald123
Here is the official eligibility. Does make sense to set the bar high
initially and loose it slowly afterwards.

Eligibility

-You graduated from a US university or participated in a US acceleration/incubation program, entrepreneurial boot-camp, etc.;

-Your company is underway in terms of incorporation, financing and corporate governance;

-Your company has been accepted as a member of the VDC; and

-You possess the necessary skill, experience and talent to qualify for an H-1B visa.

~~~
bitL
Why not EB-visa though? H1B is completely useless or even dangerous for
startup founders. It's easier to live in e.g. Canada and incorporate in
Delaware, than work in the US as H1B and be prevented from incorporating
anything, effectively ending up as a high-performing slave wasting best years
on somebody else's success.

~~~
donald123
there is no EB-visa, only EB green cards. But you need to get H1B first before
you can jump through the EB hoops.

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dragonwriter
> there is no EB-visa

Citizenship and Immigration Services thinks there's 5 different subcategories
of them.

[https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-
worker...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-workers)

> only EB green cards.

Nope, Green Cards don't have categories, they require you to be currently
admitted in an immigrant visa category (EB-1 through -5 qualify, as do a
number of others, but not H-1B or other non-immigrant visas.)

> But you need to get H1B first before you can jump through the EB hoops.

No, you don't.

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black_13
No.

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dang
Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

