
Study: Immigrants and their kids founded 45% of U.S. Fortune 500 companies - elsewhen
https://www.axios.com/immigrants-founders-fortune-500-companies-7e883b5a-1b76-462c-83b5-be68e2e9cae4.html
======
metalchianti
Definitely some selection bias. Many wealthy people in the US are immigrants.
Also, many wealthy people probably choose to immigrate to the US to start
their business because of lower barriers to entry.

EDIT: Also, if this [1] is correct, 13.7% of people in the US are immigrants.
So how many people are immigrants OR first-gen? And since ANY of the founders
can be immigrants/first-gen, more founders means higher likelihood that it
fits this criteria.

[1][https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-
requested...](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-
statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states)

~~~
pjc50
Not all these people were wealthy before they arrived; Andy Grove of Intel was
a Hungarian refugee, for example.

~~~
ilikehurdles
I have a hypothesis related to this. I believe that surviving being a child
refugee in America is something that really brings out the grit in a person.
Seeing the things your family goes through to provide a normal life for you in
a strange and new place, overcoming ethnic biases, language barriers, and life
on government assistance really brings out the attitudes of drive and
perseverance toward reaching one's goals.

I'd be curious to see how the likeliness of refugees to reach higher income
brackets over their lives compares to native-born Americans.

~~~
hartator
Andy Grove came in the US at 20. He was never on government assistance nor saw
his family having to adapt to a new place.

~~~
testvox
He may have acquired his grit through other means, in his words:

> By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist
> dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazis' "Final Solution," the
> siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in
> the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive Communist
> regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint... [where]
> many young people were killed; countless others were interned. Some two
> hundred thousand Hungarians escaped to the West. I was one of them.

~~~
cronix
I'd be really curious about his viewpoints on the current US political
landscape, considering he experienced real, actual fascism and not the label
everyone throws around willy-nilly trying to tar and feather each other.
Personally, whenever I hear the terms racist or fascist thrown around, racism
and fascism never actually enter my mind, or at least extremely rarely. I just
think "Oh, another person who disagrees with someone else," because that's how
the words are used in modern day politics. The words have lost their actual
meaning to me due to their incorrect usage, and over saturation of their
usage. You can only cry wolf so much.

~~~
pjc50
That's a little difficult given that he died in 2016. There are not so many
people left alive who remember the hard end of WW2-era fascism.

The one I always refer people to, written in 1995 but applicable to any time,
is Umberto Eco's "Ur-Fascism". [http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-
fascism.pdf](http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf) \-
written from his personal experience as a young boy in fascist Italy at the
time of its liberation.

The full essay is long and detailed, and interestingly contrasts Italian
fascism with Nazism; Eco's view was that Nazism was a specific philosophy and
programme that was capable of clearly delineating what it was about, while
fascism was much less intellectually coherent.

> Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist
> regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist.
> Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar.
> Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes.
> Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much
> fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic
> mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and
> you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.

But he ultimately distils it down to fourteen characteristic points. It is up
to the reader to apply them to modern movements and see how well the
resemblance holds.

(cult of tradition; rejection of modernism; irrationalism; disagreement is
treason; appeal against intruders; appeal to middle class; obsession with a
plot against the nation; feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force
of their enemies; life is permanent warfare; popular elitism; heroism as death
cult; machismo; selective populism & anti-parliamentarianism; and "newspeak")

~~~
selimthegrim
So Peter Thiel is an alt-fascist (via Evola)?

~~~
selimthegrim
I confused Guénon (Evola's friend) and Girard. My bad.

------
harryh
The way they handle companies with > 1 founder is a bit weird. If there is at
least one immigrant / 1st gen American it's counted in the "founded by"
category. And then the 45% is taken by looking at things just at the company
level.

I think it would tell a clearer picture to count the total number of founders
and count the percentage of people who were immigrants / 1st gen americans.
Then, to give context, you would want to compare this number to the % of
people living in the US who are immigrants / 1st gen Americans.

~~~
rayiner
The article also appears to count companies as “founded by immigrants” if
they’re the result of a merger where one of the original companies was founded
by immigrants. United Technologies, for example, is a huge conglomerate. I
have no idea who the immigrant founder is supposed to be.

Moreover, a quarter of America’s population fits into the category of
“immigrants or children of immigrants.” At the time many of these companies
were founded, it was closer to 40%. If you count # of immigrant founders / #
of non-immigrant founders, as you suggest, it could very well be that
immigrants are underrepresented.

------
kediz
The publisher of this "Study" is from New American Economy, a think tank
"fighting for smart federal, state, and local immigration policies that help
grow our economy and create jobs for all Americans."

So I don't think it is 100% neutral in terms of its view on immigrants.

~~~
save_ferris
Serious question: what does a neutral view on immigrants look like? How does
one take a view on immigrants without aligning with one side of the debate?

You bring up a valid point in identifying the authors of this study. I'm just
not sure what a truly neutral position in that debate would look like.

~~~
joshuaheard
Maybe if the study was not published by a pro-immigrant think tank, but was
published by a think tank focused on, say, economics or social policy.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
In my experience, most articles that advocate for a particular action or
policy make unstated assumptions about metaphysics / ethics. I'm not sure
economics or social-policy articles would be an exception.

For example: It's pretty uncontroversial to say that _${N}_ persons cross the
Mexican-to-American border, not at official government checkpoints, annually.

It's slightly more controversial to claim that _${M}_ of them are doing so
illegally, because matters of law are complicated and matters of judgment.

But when we get to actual policy decisions, we have competing concepts of
what's good and worth attempting. For example, how do we balance competing
concepts of justice? How do we balance justice and mercy? What's the proper
balance for the U.S. government regarding protecting immigrants vs. current
residents?

Personally, I haven't found any good, reasoned way to argue about those
metaphysical issues. I have personal preferences, and I know which things rub
me the wrong way more than others. But in the end it seems like a matter of
taste, so I'm not even sure it's worth trying to persuade others.

~~~
logicchains
>Personally, I haven't found any good, reasoned way to argue about those
metaphysical issues. I have personal preferences, and I know which things rub
me the wrong way more than others. But in the end it seems like a matter of
taste, so I'm not even sure it's worth trying to persuade others.

One approach is to try and adopt a system that has a minimal amount of
assumptions and inconsistencies. This is the approach taken by economics. The
core idea is that, if somebody is willing to exchange their labour/product of
their labour for something, then they demonstrably value that thing more at
that time than all other possible things for which they could have exchanged
their labour/product of their labour. A surprisingly large body of reasoning
is built upon this and little else.

This is why most economists, mainstream or otherwise, support immigration. The
immigrant wants it, their employer wants it and their landlord wants it,
otherwise none of them would have agreed to it, so preventing this arrangement
prevents them from realising their top preferences at that time, forcing them
to settle for a less desired outcomes. What about the fact it might put a
local out of a job? That argument requires some kind of assumptions that how
much somebody "deserves" a job depends on where they're born; it's hard to
justify without adding extra axioms, and certainly not self-evident (many
people argue it's unjust to descriminate based on place of birth). Similarly,
what about the argument that immigration destroys cultural homogeneity? This
requires some kind of assumptions to justify why cultural homogeneity is
desirable, which are hard to even specify, as it requires first clearly
defining the concept of culture.

------
konopoly
Its strange to see Amazon on the list. Bezos was born to American parents but
after they divorced his mother remarried to a Cuban immigrant. I dont think
that makes him the son of immigrants.

~~~
sudosteph
Especially not when the study itself is clearly intended to be used as
evidence to support a particular position on immigration policy. Makes it seem
a bit cherry-picked.

~~~
whymauri
What is the position?

~~~
will4274
That immigration is a positive for America.

Are you seriously asking?

~~~
whymauri
Clearly, yes. I thought it was coming from a different think tank.

~~~
will4274
I dunno, I guess I just thought the agenda was obvious given the "Why it
matters", "between the lines" and "by the numbers" part of the article

------
sudosteph
In case it's unclear from the title, the study showed that 45% of Fortune 500
companies had _at least 1_ founder that was an immigrant or child of an
immigrant. For example, Facebook is considered "founded by an immigrant" in
this categorization, which sort of surprised me at first.

~~~
blululu
The title is a bit misleading. I get the sense that the data analysis is
pretty biased toward proving a point. Having a single founder who is a second
generation immigrant is not equal to having all founders being third
generation + immigrants. Taking the total percentage of all founders of
Fortune 500 companies might be more reasonable.

------
mAEStro-paNDa
For everyone claiming bias, it's pretty clearly stated in the first sentence:

>...according to a new study by New American Economy, a bipartisan pro-
immigration group.

What I'm not seeing much of in the comments is how the debate around
immigration has come to a very alarming place, with most of it having nothing
to do with what actually occurs in reality. In my honest opinion, that
discussion is far more important than the specifics of this study.

------
lukaa
I think problem is not in immigration but in type of immigration.So it would
be nice not to stop by just say immigrants founded companies.It should be
examined how many of that immigrants are highly educated and have parents like
that and how many just enter USA in uncotrolled immigration.

~~~
shados
I remember one of the first time the company I work for had a "First gen in
tech" event. We had a funny discussion about how, technically, I was part of
the target audience. I'm as much of a white western dude as they come, but I'm
technically on a green card, my parents are not in the US, I'm the first of my
family to be in tech. Checks all the boxes.

In practice I'm definitely NOT the kind of person these things are aimed at.
Being a white Canadian dude who just moved a few hours south because the job
market was more interesting isn't exactly a life changing experience or even
challenging.

Still, if I founded a company, I'd be on that list. Worse, if my children were
to found a company, they'd be on that list too, even though they wouldn't have
an ounce of hardship (at least from birth situation) or diversity in their
bones.

~~~
jdavis703
That's fine, you're still a valid part of the immigration discussion. For
example as an American when I go to Canada I get more hassle than when I'm in
Europe. If anything I'd assume it would be easier to go between Canada and the
U.S. which are a lot more culturally similar than say Germany and France.

~~~
shados
Fascinating. Ill admit I've never traveled to Europe. What part is easier? My
wife (an American citizen) has gone to Canada fairly frequently and clearing
the custom is a quick formality. My narrow minded self can only imagine that
short of not having a customs at all, it can't get a whole lot easier.

~~~
jdavis703
In Europe it's one or two questions (e.g. "how long are you staying?" and "why
are you coming here?"). In Canada it's dozens of questions for 5-10 minutes.
TBH as an American the same thing happened whenever I came back home to the US
so who knows maybe I'm on some kind of list. At least in the US it's stopped
now that I have Global Entry.

------
keketi
Some of the companies are quite old and have a complicated history of mergers
and acquisitions. For example both AT&T and Verizon are descendants of Bell
Telephone Company, established in 1879.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_AT%26T](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_AT%26T)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications)

------
galkk
Child of an immigrant?

Come on, let's add then grandchildren, friends, lovers, people from the same
middle school etc. Most of the time those kids are 100% Americans, who often
might not even know the language of their parents.

Source: I'm an immigrant, and the situation: "kids are speaking Russian with
me, but between themselves they prefer to speak English, and don't ask me
about their writing skills in Russian" is very common among my circle.

------
ch_123
Unless 55% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by Native Americans, I would
expect the percentage of companies founded by "immigrants or their children"
in the US to be much higher than 45%

------
lazyjones
Someone should interview those founders and ask them about their views on
_illegal_ immigration.

~~~
cabaalis
> Someone should interview those founders and ask them about their views on
> illegal immigration.

An important distinction the media never makes. To actually get at the real
controversy, they should study how many of these founders jumped a fence and
used a fake social security number.

~~~
swordsmith
Exactly. It's offensive to put legal immigrants (at least to my family and
people we know) in the same category as illegal immigrants, and use our
success to justify illegal immigration.

------
gingabriska
But it isn't a proof that if the immigrants did not found these companies,
someone local wouldn't have found them either.

Maybe it had taken some more time but, locals would have ended up setting up
these either way.

A big maybe.

China is an example that screams, immigrants do not matter much for economic
success.

~~~
256
There are a lot of other differences between America and China that make this
a terrible comparison.

~~~
gingabriska
Japan, Korea, Germany are also in line and also India (with successful space
program without immigrants). There are many countries which are successful
without immigrants, some of them are even democracies.

~~~
magduf
>Japan, Korea, Germany are also in line and also India (with successful space
program without immigrants).

This is just plain wrong, in the case of Germany. Germany has a huge immigrant
population, and has since WWII when they brought in tons of Turks to be
laborers there. There's an enormous Turkish population in Germany, and it's
not new. Germany probably would not be where it is now without them.

Japan and Korea don't have many immigrants, it's true, but they were both
occupied by the US for some time (and Japan still is, in a way, as is
Germany).

~~~
rayiner
80% of Germany is ethnic Germans (including repatriated Germans). No U.S.
state is that homogeneous.

~~~
magduf
20% immigrants is still pretty huge for a European nation.

------
cheeky78
Are we talking about Immigrants that went through the legal process?

~~~
pjc50
The legal process is a very movable barrier and has changed over time to make
it much harder. It might be interesting to ask "how many of these people
would, if they had applied under the current rules rather than those of the
time, have been turned away?"

~~~
ta777778
Actually it used to be much harder - you used to have to be northern European,
educated or affluent.

~~~
pgcj_poster
In most cases, don't you still have to educated and/or affluent?

~~~
pandaman
From the 2015-2017 yearbook [1]:

~750K family based immigrants with no requirement for education and wealth
requirements in the range of being slightly above poverty for some categories.
~120K refugees, with no requirements ~30K asylees, with no requirements ~50K
diversity, with high school education requirement

vs

140K employment based, who you might call educated and/or affluent as it
includes investors and people with advanced degrees.

1\. [https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-
statistics/yearbook/2017/tab...](https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-
statistics/yearbook/2017/table6)

~~~
pgcj_poster
I'm not sure that this actually contradicts what I said.

I follow the subreddit r/IWantOut. Every day, someone asks about coming to the
US, and we tell pretty much all of them "better get a Masters in Engineering
first." The fact is, most people who would like to immigrate to the US are not
refugees or related to US citizens. For most of them, the bar actually is that
high. That we accept a lot of people from categories that not many people fall
into, including ones that I would barely count as immigration (eg. "Child of a
US citizen"), doesn't have much impact on the general case.

Additionally, I think it's important to consider the practical barriers in the
system, not just the text of the laws. From what I've heard, the paperwork and
fees involved can cost thousands of dollars, and the regulations are so
complex that you need either top-notch English reading skills, or a lawyer.

~~~
pandaman
You said "In most cases, don't you still have to educated and/or affluent?", I
read this as a question and provided you with data showing, that the answer is
negative. Most immigration cases do not require either education or wealth.

------
bufferoverflow
Let's not compare unchecked immigration with what the US has been doing for
many decades. H1B is a very selective process, it filters for the educated and
the active. It's no surprise so many of them succeed in the US.

------
sigzero
Without a breakdown between those immigrants that came through the system
legally versus other means, I don't see the real benefit to this data.

Edit: I emailed the author of the piece and she confirmed that there was no
breakdown.

------
RaceWon
Sure, my family emigrated here: my father, who was born here as a first
generation American--was just that; an American. He had No trace of an Italian
accent (altough his parents barley spoke intelligible English), and in fact he
forgot how to even speak Italian. He fought in WW2 as did his brothers (who
were also American and spoke flawless English). They (my father and his
brothers all got together and started a business after the war--though not a
Fortune 500 company they earned an above average mid income living).

I contrast this with literally dozens of people I know, some good friends of
mine who are here to only make money so they can return back to the native
country--they do not consider themselves to be American, nor do they consider
America their home, and indeed still refer to their native land as "my
country". American can function as a Nation with some residents having this
visitor attitude--but Not with 10s of millions of people who simply reside
here. It's common sense.

------
bazooka_penguin
Is it broken down by origin, class, etc? If we parametrize financial success
then it may make sense to prioritize certain countries, classes, etc for
immigration while filtering out the less successful, for the sake economy,
because that's what's important of course.

~~~
pgcj_poster
I don't think it's fair to assume that the economy _is_ the main thing that's
important. A lot of conservatives would say that the main issue is culture,
not economics. On the flip-side, I think migration is a human right, and this
discussion is sort of like arguing about whether abolition would hurt the
cotton industry.

------
eesmith
See also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085970)
from 4 years ago, "Most high tech companies are founded by founded by
First/2nd gen immigrants" and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11306290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11306290)
from 3 years ago, "Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar
Startups".

Some of the same analysis questions bring brought up now were also brought up
in those earlier threads.

------
ta777778
Bold move - to use the positive results of pre-1965 immigration policy that
selected for educated and affluent Europeans - as if it's an argument for a
/more/ open immigration policy. Incredible and stupid.

------
RenRav
Aren't already established/rich and successful foreigners more likely to
migrate and set up shop here?

45% shouldn't be a surprise if so, you are basically comparing against the
cream of the crop from every other country.

~~~
tracer4201
I care less about what anyone thinks is likely and care more about the actual
data.

My parents were immigrants. My mother raised kids while my dad had two jobs
that paid minimum wage. My annual comp at my day job is > $400K. My older
sibling is a medical doctor. My family certainly came from no privilege at
all. The only advantage we had was my father getting the opportunity to
immigrate to the US.

Saying that 45% is all “cream of the crop” is a pathetic level of mental
gymnastics.

~~~
RenRav
You're probably right, I forgot there's a cap to EB 5 visas. Those immigrants
I meant as the "cream of the crop."

------
cmoscoe
One issue with this method is that the Fortune 500 has companies in it that
are hundreds of years old. Only 26 of them were founded this century[1].
Alexander Hamilton founded one of them.

The circumstances today could be somewhat different. That said, as a non-
american looking at starting a company, America still looks like a pretty
great place to do it, to the extent that I still sometimes think of moving.

[1] [https://fortune.com/longform/fortune-500-through-the-
ages/](https://fortune.com/longform/fortune-500-through-the-ages/)

------
tehlike
I think there is some bias due to historical events.

Ww2 caused a lot of jewish immigrants to emmigrate from europe and some
emigrated later from russia. They have been very successful in general. I am
sure this particular population already skews the statistics already.

~~~
onion2k
I don't think many of those immigrants would be counted in this study. No
founders would be in that group, and very few founders would have parents in
that group. Possibly grandparents, but the study is only counting first and
second generations.

~~~
qntty
No founders of Fortune 500 companies would be in that group? Why do you say
that?

~~~
onion2k
You're absolutely right. I'm wrong. It's very likely some people would be in
that group.

------
bwb
I kinda just want to say duh to this, we are a nation of immigrants.

------
stunt
it seems many have missed the point, or at least that’s not how I read this.

This is not about if immigrants didn’t found company X, an American could do
it (well that’s valid about crimes and drugs too! Right?). It’s also not about
if they were first generation or second generation.

I believe the study shows immigrants overall had a positive contribution and
big impact. Either by themselves or their family.

And this is a good study for people that only see immigrants as a source of
crimes and negative impacts.

------
lorriman
This is only an issue because Donald Trump is misrepresented as being racist
and anti-immigration when he has only talked of illegal immigration and the
problem of Islamic migrants (ie, the Islamic version of democracy which is not
compatible with any Western Liberal democracy).

------
dfsegoat
Fact: Immigrants and their kids founded the U.S.

------
C1sc0cat
Going Back How far? AT&T was founded by an immigrant for example and Henry
Fords Mum Was an Immigrant.

------
rdlecler1
I can’t stand bad reasoning even if I sympathize with the objective so to make
immigration case to Trump supporters you’re going to have to break out those
that came to the U.S. through legal and illegal means. You’re also going to
have to show them that a meaningful portion of entrepreneurs came from Latin
America because that’s where much of the illegal immigration comes from.

------
lota-putty
98% of Americans(USA) are non-natives.

I would like to know if any of 2% natives made it to fortune 500.

Anyone?

------
spunker540
Pro-immigration reading: this is great and shows how much value immigrants add
to America.

Anti-immigration reading: this just goes to show that there are too many
immigrants in America.

------
dsirola
The correct number is actually 100% (or close to it). It just depends how many
generations back the family immigrated.

~~~
ceejayoz
The study's talking specifically about first and second generation immigrants.

------
shrikant
I've flagged this post because (IMHO):

    
    
      1) Doesn't belong on HN.
      2) Comments so far are unsubstantive -- ranging from "middlebrow dismissal" to flamebait.
      3) Doesn't appear to be conducive to any sort of useful discussion.
    

Edit: Clearly I've struck a nerve someplace.

~~~
will4274
I tend to agree. This study has some pretty serious methodology problems that
the article ignores completely. It seems like somebody with an agenda decided
to fund some science and skip the rigor.

------
bruceb
Immigrants is such a broad term its nearly meaningless.

From the article: "The share of the most successful and globally-recognized
U.S. companies that have immigrant founders is growing, according to NAE's
Hanna Siegel and Andrew Lim, while the Trump administration has tried to make
it more difficult for immigrants to come to the U.S., often claiming that they
take American jobs and lower wages."

No mention what type of immigrant founded these companies (and by founded, it
could mean they were one of a couple cofounders) Most likely they were already
highly educated or pursing an advanced degree in the US.

When you go to the source material from New American Economy think tank, they
don't have any links to explain how they created this report, nothing about
methodology. Its just hey believe us.

~~~
mtmail
"Since our first New American Fortune 500 report in 2011 [..]" "In this year's
brief, we update our analysis, looking at the New American companies that made
the 2019 Fortune 500 list."

So the methodology, even a table listing every founder is in the linked 2011
report [https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/0...](https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/new-american-fortune-500-june-2011.pdf)

~~~
bruceb
2011, where is it for this year's report?

