

Startup Visa - tspiteri
http://nat.org/blog/2009/10/startup-visa/

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mseebach
I used to be involved in some European youth NGO work. Getting participants
from outside the Schengen in, just for non-work visits, is also a big
nuisance. So at a meeting we adopted a resolution to be put in front of the
relevant EU officials that a special youth NGO visa should be put in place
(not surprisingly, nothing happened).

If it was, it would have been nice for us, but I have roughly the same feeling
then than I have towards this: "We" (not me since I'm not a US citizen and as
such don't really get to lobby the US government) are lobbying for something
that good for us and "our" people by arguing it's for the greater good of
society. But in fact, were we to get this adopted, we'd only further
complicate a complicated and broken system.

"Me too" exceptions are poisoning pretty much all areas of the political
system in most of the "first" world, and only serves to get in the way of
actual reform.

I'd love to come to the US and work for a startup. But I won't subject myself
to the uncertainty of having to leave the country immediately if I were to
leave that company. The same goes for a transfer under L1. If you want me,
I'll come, but don't make me jump through bureaucracy hoops that no-one
remembers what are for anyway.

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bad_user
I don't have a college degree ... I don't because I didn't had enough money
and had to get a job. I also live in a European country, and living in Silicon
Valley would be like a dream come true (having around you smart people that
share your passion must be great).

Unfortunately the world is still looking up to these college degrees as an
exclusive guarantee of some sort. I know that college graduates had
opportunities to learn and interact with real mentors and everything, I know
some of them worked really hard for that degree ... but there are also many
graduates that haven't learned anything and wasted their time and resources,
going through exams by gaming the system. I also know that in some colleges in
my country you can bribe the dean to get that degree in a couple of days.

One day someone offered to hire me to work for the government ... he was
impressed with my online resume. The offered salary was one fourth as I was
earning at my job. I told him I didn't had a college degree and he never spoke
to me again ... there are times when I consider my lack of a degree as an
asset.

~~~
notauser
I agree with you that there are a lot of people who are extremely valuable to
an economy despite not having a degree. However I would suggest that a degree
is still a good bar to have in place.

\- The average quality of the with-degree pool is subject to a lower bound,
which helps reduce the number of applicants to a manageable level. This is
important because there are a lot of potential applicants out there, too many
to humanly sort through in any kind of fair way.

\- Getting a degree is mostly based on merit and effort. There are exceptions
but in a great deal of the world a sufficiently motivated person can scrape
together enough money to get a degree. I can't think of another verifiable
discriminator that can be used worldwide where that can be said to be true.

Certainly in a European country where degrees tend to be highly subsidized (my
BEng and MEng cost me less than $25k in total, all of which was covered by
government loans) making someone get one before you look at them for
immigration or some types of jobs doesn't seem unwarranted.

~~~
antonovka
_I agree with you that there are a lot of people who are extremely valuable to
an economy despite not having a degree. However I would suggest that a degree
is still a good bar to have in place._

Why is a degree any less of an arbitrary requirement than requiring extensive
real-world experience (thus restricting opportunities available to many recent
graduates)?

I think it's simply naive and foolish to exclude candidates based _entirely_
on secondary indicators of their skills. First-pass filtering is easy enough
based on primary indicators.

Moreover, due to the rapid increase of college attendance post WWII (starting
with the introduction of the GI bill), college degrees are no longer a rarity
-- without further context, they are not really a suitable secondary indicator
of much of anything. Now you have to get a phd to stand out from the crowd.

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tptacek
The college requirement on H1-B visas is broken. But believing that doesn't
require me to believe that "Startup Visas" are a good idea. If we want to
foster more startups in the US, we should fix health care. Far more potential
startups are killed because their founders can't give up company health care
for their families than are killed because their foreign founders can't get
visas.

~~~
kapitti
Health care and the complications of the US tax code.

~~~
tptacek
What part of the US tax code retards startups? From what I can tell, for
people who are aggressive about taxes, it helps them: search YC for
"S-Corporation" and "reasonable salary".

I've _never_ heard someone say "I was going to start a company, but the tax
situation is all screwed up." On the other hand, I have heard "I was going to
join a startup, but I can't give up my health insurance" several times in the
last few months.

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chrischen
Jared Polis of Colorado is already on board. My cofounder is Canadian.

We invite promising college students so I think it's time we stepped up and
invited promising people who skip college.

