
Immigration to increase the supply of programmers - soundsop
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/01/02/immigration-to-increase-the-supply-of-programmers/
======
patio11
I think the subtext of "I would hire thirty great programmers tomorrow!" is "I
would hire thirty great programmers tomorrow! They just need to think 55 hours
a week is a nice relaxing pace, have impeccable pedigrees, and be capable of
spinning up within single-digit weeks. Also, we're looking for top-of-the-
skill-curve at a combination of five technologies, two of which are fairly
niche. For a variety of reasons we'd strongly prefer if they were located in
one particular geographic area where we happen to be in vicious, frothy
competition with a hundred firms trying to hire exactly this profile of
people."

This happens to be very similar to the rough description that Wall Street is
looking for in certain niches of programmers. I have not heard Wall Street
loudly complaining about the impossibility of finding Haskell programmers who
can code against FIX and also have PhDs in physics.

I rather strongly believe this is because Wall Street institutionally believes
in market prices and, unlike Silicon Valley, is willing to tolerate the market
telling them that the market clearing price for hiring this type of programmer
times thirty is $200k base plus a $600k bonus as opposed to $120k base plus an
equity grant with expected value in the $X0k range.

~~~
abalone
It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages
could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe established companies
could, but it would massively increase the fundraising requirements for early
stage companies, with probably bad effects on the SV ecosystem.

Perhaps you can argue that startup equity grants should be higher. Would
hiring issues be resolved if the average equity grant tripled? Would more
talented people in the U.S. pursue Silicon Valley careers if they got 3%
instead of 1% to be an early employee?

I can't prove it, but I'd conjecture it would only have a modest effect. The
notion of "expected value" of equity is problematic. It's not like it's simply
a 3X stronger offer. The bigger issue is whether the company will be worth
anything at all.

~~~
mgkimsal
> It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages
> could be offered by Silicon Valley startups.

Maybe this would force VC companies to be more selective in who they fund, vs
"fund 100 and hope for 1 to be the next google".

~~~
hawkice
A first approximation would suggest doubling programming salaries would only
change their strategies from "fund 100 and hope for 1 to be good" to "fund 50
and hope for 1 to be good". More selective, sure, but not game-changingly so.

------
steven2012
What the blog post is saying is essentially saying is that pg is crying about
a broken market, when in fact the market is working perfectly, ie. people who
could be great programmers would rather go to other higher paying professions
because programmers' salaries don't pay as well. The OP basically says the CEO
of the startup could get 30 great programmers if he just raised his salaries
and benefits higher, which is what the market is telling him. For example, if
that CEO paid his programmers $1M/yr, you don't think he would get 100 of the
best programmers in the entire world? What he really is saying is that he
wants great programmers at a lower cost, and that's basically what increasing
immigration would do by increasing the supply.

I personally have no problems with increasing immigration via H1B, but the OP
makes an interesting point about economic incentives that push people to
occupations. There are a lot of very smart people who would make great
programmers that are going into finance, medicine, law, etc, because of higher
prestige and better pay. Increasing immigration will increase the number of
programmers, but if it is increased to the point where it affects wages, then
people who would be great programmers would likely go to other professions
rather than having to compete against immigrants for a comparatively lower
wage, so it might be self-defeating in the long run.

~~~
humanrebar
Agreed.

What's more is that deflating the cost of programmers makes it less sensible
to make programming teams more efficient. If programmers were paid like
doctors, you would start to see the tech equivalent of nurses, lab
technicians, orderlies, and physicians' assistants.

In other words, if you were paying your best programmers $1M/yr, you would
hire more personal assistants. And maybe there would be more demand for people
who are (or can become) fluent in technology lingo, even if they can't write
code themselves.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If programmers were paid like doctors, you would start to see the tech
> equivalent of nurses, lab technicians, orderlies, and physicians'
> assistants.

What do you think business analysts, testers, non-developer IT specialists,
etc., are?

~~~
humanrebar
Right, but programmers aren't organized like hospital staff, which is my
point. And, probably related, test engineer doesn't have the same cachet (or
prominent degree programs) that x-ray technician or nurse practitioner has.

Maybe some of this is because they don't make TV shows about programming. But
it could also be at least partially about seeing programmers as commodities
and cost centers (I need 3 senior Java engineers!) instead of seeing them as
effectively the core of your business.

So, I guess I have two suspicions about increasing programmer wages, at least
for certain categories of problems:

1\. It will incentivize laypeople to learn about how software development
works, making technology business analyst seem less like mumbo jumbo and more
like a good way to earn a living.

2\. It will incentivize organizations to restructure their processes to
maximize the productivity of their highest paid employees. This will create
more opportunities for the peole described in point 1.

------
discardorama
How about "raises to increase the supply of programmers" instead?

~~~
pen2l
Exactly. I'm really confused about this situation of VCs having their cake,
and eating it too. Why and when did we just stat accepting the assumption that
these companies and VCs are entitled to as many "superstar" programmers as
they want at the salaries that they want?

I've been arguing for 10 years that AMA needs to increase the supply of
doctors in this country. I'm of the opinion we don't have a lot of doctors...
if we had more, then in certain contexts healthcare would become a competitive
field where the patient wins. That hasn't happened. And that's an area where
we do definitely want change, because healthcare is a serious issue. Tech
industry has not produced, in my opinion, anything extraordinarily remarkable
that truly helps people in substantive ways. Indeed, the highlight of the
industry is massive wealth by the VCs and founders by duping customers by way
of exploiting their cognitive biases (or "advertising", if you would). If they
were doing things in a clean way that actually benefited the customer without
emptying his or her wallet, I would maybe be sympathetic to their cries for
getting top talent. But after all of that colluding to suppress the wages of
the very people they want more of? Wow, the balls that they have.

------
peterchon
I'm an immigrant, served in USMC, after service had to pay and take a test to
become a citizen (funny right? can die for the country but won't let me be a
citizen).

I love my country(both), but when did immigration become something to benefit
the corporations?

~~~
bilbo0s
I'm a bit confused by your question ???

Immigration, at the root, has always been about economic necessity in North
America. Why would it be any different now ?

~~~
peterchon
Maybe I'm just naive. But I'd like to think that immigration is for a greater
cause than for companies to make more money.

------
whiddershins
What if the qualities that make a drug dealer are economic, but the qualities
that make a GREAT drug dealer may be a mix of environment and genes?

If you want the most amazing, ruthless, and efficient black market for drugs,
you must have the largest possible number of drug dealers participating in the
system, so the most talented and motivated drug dealers have the opportunity
to be the best they can be.

The author of this post is missing some of Graham's core arguments, and it
makes me want to go back and reread the original essay. Perhaps it is PG's
fault for conflating concepts, as people seem to be raising valid points
(startups should be able to hire great programmers if they would just pay
more) while missing that the core thesis is undeniable: if there are more
programmers participating, more greatness will emerge.

It is probably not even linear. If you track the history of martial arts
proficiency, the ones that are in fashion seem to produce a higher overall
average of ability, with the "greats" in that martial art always arising when
many many people are participating in that art, and there is a rich ecosystem
that supports learning and competition. i.e. Judo in the 1970s, or Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu in the early 2000s.

I see this anecdotally and in published research, where pockets of artists,
writers, and musicians have created a wildly disproportionate amount of
forward looking work when there are many of them in the same area creating all
at once.

Even if startups paid more, it would not significantly increase the total
number of great programmers. Google, Apple, and Facebook already DO pay "more"
and I think these companies are in exactly the same boat as the startup in the
essay - they would happily keep hiring as many great programmers as they can
find.

If that is true, the number of jobs available to great programmers is not
proved to be finite.

~~~
peterchon
What makes a great programmer? And what does this great programmers do? We
have had and still have a vast number of great programmers in US and churning
our more and more, but what do they do? is it greatness that they seek? if so,
why are more programmers involved in scientific research? I really want to
agree with your views, but for now it seems that immigration is an issue for
one market sector, and last time I looked, that market sector isn't out to
change the world.

------
davidw
And why should we artificially restrict the supply of immigrants? It's not
like it's a zero-sum game, something that Greenspun ought to realize.

[http://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-
jobs...](http://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs/)

~~~
31reasons
It is not zero-sum ? companies like Google, Facebook pick 1 out of 100
programmers, if there was 10 fold increase in programmers, they would start
picking 1 out of 1000. Instead of complaining shortage of programmer it makes
sense to build software development processes around "average" programmers
rather than insisting on superstar programmers. How many other fields do that
? Have you read an ad about hiring only superstar
plumber,pilot,electrician,nurse? Even if its true that your company will
benefit from so called 10x programmers why not train people to be 10x or give
degrees to people who are only 10x. Just increasing the pool of 1x while
insisting on hiring 10x doesn't make sense.

~~~
palakchokshi
Angie's List does explicitly that, showing you superstar plumbers,
electricians, doctors, etc. If I am given the choice to hire a great plumber
vs. an average plumber I would always hire a great plumber if I can afford
him. Your argument that development processes should be built around average
programmers is like saying open heart surgical procedures should be designed
around average surgeons.

~~~
the_real_bto
I don't know how to read your comment. I, for one, do believe that surgical
procedures should be designed for the average surgeon.

You want the procedures to be built around superstars?

If I were building a software company that I wanted to survive and thrive long
term, I would definitely try to cater to BOTH the superstar and more average
programmers. Both have their place.

~~~
palakchokshi
I think I might have to specify what I mean by average. I read average as
competent. Sure there are software processes that a competent programmer can
work with but to say all processes should be designed for just competent
programmers,as the commentator suggested, is unreasonable in my opinion. I do
see your point though about designing processes around just superstars. That's
not viable either.

------
jqm
Maybe what we really need is an increase in VC's?

Possibly grant resident status to anyone (with lot of money of course... after
all, it's only the exceptional we are talking about here) who wants to fund
and run a VC company? Because there are lots of great programmers who simply
can't get funding.

I wonder how PG would feel about that?

~~~
pm90
You can get a GC in the US if you can prove that you have $1 million invested
in the US. Yes, its as simple as that. More rich people not moving is probably
because if you're rich, you already have a good lifestyle.

~~~
foobarqux
I think it can be as low as $250k if invested in certain areas.

------
dang
HN has recently had multiple extensive threads about PG's immigration essay
and the questions raised by it. In such cases, we demote follow-up posts as
duplicates unless they contain significant new information.

Please note that this criterion depends neither on what the particular topic
is, nor the opinions people express, nor who they agree or disagree with. It
has to do with avoiding repetition.

The reason for this practice is that without it, the same vociferous
discussions would recur on the front page every day, and that would fail to
gratify intellectual curiosity.

~~~
ky3
_fail to gratify intellectual curiosity_

At stake here are the 2 functions that HN serves: 1. a front page for the HN
readership, and 2. an electronic town-hall.

Consider that the town-hall service to the community is how HN got where it
did today.

It's one thing to rein in repetitious bunkum, it's quite another for the Chair
to say, "bah, I find this so boring" if you allow me caricaturizing license.

~~~
dang
The only part of this that I really disagree with is the "At stake here". That
suggests that there's some danger of destroying one of those things, as if
we're unaware of or don't value it. But of course we do. There's no question
of suppressing discussion or of thwarting the community from talking about
something that it cares about. The issue is one of balance, and it's a purely
pragmatic one. If someone can suggest a better way, we're all ears.

~~~
ky3
The "At stake here" borrows from judicial writing, where disinterested parties
offer an analysis that would cut the gordion knot of obscuring details. It's
short for, "This is really what the debate is about, isn't it?"

From your comment, I gather that HN moderators feel a bit high-strung over the
faintest accusation of censorship.

At stake here, I suppose, is PG's reputation, which I'm generally indifferent
about. An upstanding citizen of the tech community he is, nothing less,
nothing more.

------
big_astrocyte
I'm not sure if I want to see any particular country progress as much as I
want to see tech and the world at large progress. I also agree with the fact
that when a lot of people skilled in one particular domain gather at one
place, amazing things happen!! But would a small area 100% full of programmers
be better or worse than something like SV? At what point does the innovative
progress being produced by a city start to plateau? 25% full of high earning
programmers, 50% full of high earning programmers, 75% full of high earning
programmers?

The point that I'm trying to make is that, without a lot of empirical
evidence, I think it would be a much better idea to try and create more such
centers across the world. Thus, for those focusing strictly on tech progress
(as opposed to American progress) it might be a better idea to let the US
immigration laws be the way they are, while encouraging VCs to travel a bit
more (even to other American cities, for starters) and helping the amazing
culture travel to other cities. I can't understand why we focus on one
particular country instead of combined innovation of the world!

The future doesn't lie in Silicon Valley being 100% full of programmers from
across the world. It is just not big enough!! The future lies in a 1000
silicon valleys having a certain threshold of programmers. Just a thought.

------
vasilipupkin
I am all for letting talented people in. Clearly, everybody would benefit if
the really talented programmers from all over the world could work where the
eco-system is set up for them. However, tech companies generally complain
about a general shortage of programmers. And I don't buy it because a shortage
would manifest itself through large real wage increases and we don't see
those. I also suspect talented programmers overseas are already working for us
- remotely.

------
tessierashpool
I guarantee you, open your doors to remote programmers, and you will get more
top-quality prospects than you can possibly hire.

You're restricting your hiring pool to people who are willing to live in a
small, overpriced, and absurdly overrated city.

It's a wonderful place, don't get me wrong. But expecting every single great
programmer in the world to live in that one tiny city is just ridiculous. By
Paul Graham's own arguments, they wouldn't all be able to fit.

------
hkarthik
Hypothetically, let's say every YC startup was to double the starting salaries
for programmers they hired.

So if they are paying $120K-$150K/year, they start paying $240K-$300K/year. At
that salary, programmers are getting paid on par with lawyers, doctors, and
bankers.

To pay this much, assume every startup needs to raise double or triple the
amount of capital. The $1 million angel round becomes a $3 million VC round.
For the VCs, the $100 million doesn't cut it and they start wanting the $300
million or $1 billion exits to justify the volume of seeds to exits.

The net effect is that the entire sector will need to de-leverage the risks
they are currently taking. Entire business models that are currently
considered fundable become completely impractical. VCs no longer spread the
risk among many startups and start to rely on fewer, safer bets.

Maybe in general, the whole sector would feel a little healthier instead of
this constant up and down every few years. But in the short term, it would
result in a lot of pain for the major players in SF and Silicon Valley today.

~~~
gaius
I'm really sad that John Doerr won't make another billion dollars.

Oh wait, no I'm not. You see, it won't change a thing. In the current low-
interest-rate environment _there is nowhere else for the money to go_. VCs and
startups could pay engineers fairly (i.e. at the price at which the market
clears) without breaking a sweat. They just don't, out of naked greed. Except
now they're running out of people naive enough to exploit, hence wanting to
bring in more people, people who are indentured by their visa status.

~~~
ky3
_startups could pay engineers fairly .... They just don 't, out of naked
greed._

Also that idle hands are the devil's workshop.

There's a fiduciary duty to channel disruption where it is due, while at the
same time stabilizing the polity elsewhere.

------
dennisgorelik
Philip Greenspun forgot to mention that if immigration restrictions persist,
then potential immigrants who cannot enter the US due to immigration
restrictions would make less than they would do in the US.

Is that discrimination against potential immigrants fair?

------
tokenadult
Philip Greenspun is notorious for being intentionally provocative in his
online essays, but here he makes a thoughtful contribution to the literature
by picking apart one of the weakest points in Paul Graham's recent essay. The
essay by pg appears to assume that programmers are born and not made and they
are born in equal rates by population in all parts of the world. Greenspun
correctly challenges that kind of naive genetic determinism and suggests that
people around the world, in many occupations, respond to incentives, so that
people who are within reach of incentives to become better programmers will
tend to become better programmers, while people not offered incentives to
become better programmers will choose other career trade-offs.

Our fellow participant in this discussion davidw makes the good point that
immigration in general is good for countries in general. So my basic policy
predisposition is for the United States to have very open borders to
immigration, and to impose few requirements on immigration. (All of my
ancestors came to North America under rules like that, after all.) My wife was
readily able to immigrate to the United States under the "immediate relative"
category of immigrants after we had been married for more than a year
overseas. My oldest son has sometimes considered moving away from the United
States to settle in another country (he has looked specifically at some other
countries), and what he has found is that his programming skills help open
doors to permanent residence and settling in other countries to immigrate, but
especially so for people with college degrees rather than on-the-job training
in programming.

It is still the case today that the United States is by far the most desired
country to settle in for immigrants from all around the world.[1] And a lot of
people achieve that desire. I know first-generation immigrants from India,
China, Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Ghana, Haiti, Australia, Pakistan, Turkey, the
Philippines, Romania, Poland, Somalia, Argentina, Ecuador, Canada, the United
Kingdom, Spain, and a variety of other countries here in Minnesota, where the
climate is anything but inviting. My inclination is to welcome even more
immigrants than the United States welcomes now (for one thing, that improves
the variety of local ethnic restaurants and grocery stores) but the United
States already receives more net immigrants from all the rest of the world
than any other country on earth, so I can understand why my fellow voters
might not think that the United States has a shortage of immigrants. To make a
strong policy case for immigration reform takes a more nuanced and tightly
reasoned factual argument than Paul Graham made in his recent essay.

[1] [http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-
drea...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-dream-
life.aspx)

~~~
davidw
> the United States already receives more net immigrants from all the rest of
> the world than any other country on earth

In terms of absolute numbers, yes. In terms of percentages, no:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migrat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-
bo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-
born_population)

> To make a strong policy case for immigration reform takes a more nuanced and
> tightly reasoned factual argument than Paul Graham made in his recent essay.

I agree with that. To that end, if you have any comments on my own article,
please feel free to email them to me. All the muddle-headed thinking I read
about immigration the last time around prompted me to write it as a place to
collect my own arguments.

~~~
tokenadult
The other countries with higher intake (as a percentage of national
population) of migrants or of foreign-born persons, as you can see from the
Wikipedia links you have kindly shared, are mostly special cases of countries
with a very high percentage of refugees or guest workers. For countries
accepting permanent residents with a path to citizenship, the United States
still ranks plenty high on a percentage basis, and the absolute numbers are
much of what generates population growth in the United States these days. I'll
have to take a look at your article and ponder it awhile. We need perspective
like yours (American living abroad) a lot more on Hacker News. Thanks for your
reply.

~~~
davidw
> mostly special cases of countries with a very high percentage of refugees or
> guest workers.

Yes, there are certainly plenty of those (and there are some arguments in
favor of that, too: [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120179/how-reduce-
global-...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120179/how-reduce-global-
income-inequality-open-immigration-policies) )

But there are also others, like Sweden, Canada, Norway, Australia and Spain
(and even Italy) that are broadly similar to the US - and in most cases offer
much more in terms of government benefits.

------
ovi256
Off topic, but the second comment from Jason is pure gold. He's calling Philip
Greenspun (of Greenspun's tenth law fame), a "Harvard Lawyer of unknown
programming provenance". I can see how blog hostnames can confuse people, but
maybe google the author for context ?

Besides, he's fighting the strawman of training, where Greenspun talked about
economic incentives.

~~~
gaius
I posted a comment to that effect a few minutes ago :-)

~~~
gaius
Hmm, which is now been deleted.

------
zameerb
What we need is a new 'SAT' tailored to find top notch coders

~~~
UK-AL
Top notch programmers come from curiosity, building a fair few complicated
projects and a little bitter experience so you know how to avoid problems and
be realistic

------
sauravc
"People are born with an innate calling to drug dealing,"

What the hell is this author talking about? While the he's a pretty
accomplished individual, he lost me with his shitty analogies based on false
premises.

~~~
thejaredhooper
That, and the included garbage at the bottom about child support, was pretty
pathetic.

