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> There are plenty of Americans who can do these jobs. This thinking is wrong. For IT jobs, the work is pre-defined and you go find people who can do the job.

> There are plenty of Americans who can do these jobs. This thinking is wrong. For IT jobs, the work is pre-defined and you go find people who can do the job. For product development this is sometimes the case, but for truly innovative products, such as AI models, this is not the case. You have to hire the best in the world and give them the resources they need, as opposed to defining the project upfront and hiring people "who can do the job".

acdha 5mo ago
How many “best in the world” people are we talking about, though? Based on what I’ve seen that’s a very small percentage (maybe 5%) while the rest were being hired by companies who valued having workers with limited negotiating power. (I’m not opposed to immigration at all but it was transparent how for decades the industry resisted any change which would make it easier for a skilled H1-B worker to take a better job)
- lateforwork 5mo ago
  > having workers with limited negotiating power Sorry, this is 100% false. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta etc. do not hire H-1Bs in order to depress wages. That does happen, but not at these companies. It typically happens when hiring IT workers.
  - bradlys 5mo ago
    These companies were all guilty of wage collusion years ago. Their culture has not gotten any better about this since.
  - newfriend 5mo ago
    The mere presence of H1-B workers depresses wages systemically.
    - lateforwork 5mo ago
      In the early 1990s a good software engineer was paid $40K starting salary, and good companies like Sun Microsystems paid $45K. If you adjust that for inflation it is around $100K. But good companies in silicon valley today pay $120K plus stock grants (so around $170K or so), and Meta and Google pay much more. So software engineer salaries have gone up dramatically in the last 35 years H-1B visa has been around. In fact, the H-1B visa is the reason the salaries have gone up. Without it the industry would be stagnant, just like non-tech S&P 500 companies and most companies in Europe in the same time period.
      - newfriend 5mo ago
        Are you trying to argue that increased supply of labor is responsible for increasing wages? As others have said, H1-B has been good for companies, and bad for American workers. The same companies who were found to be colluding to keep wages down. Europe is stagnant because of regulation, not because of immigration.
        lateforwork 5mo ago
        > Are you trying to argue that increased supply of labor is responsible for increasing wages? I am saying the reason silicon valley exists is because of the immigration of the smartest people from around the world. High Tech needs the best in the world, not the best in the US. Consider the seminal research paper that kicked off the AI revolution (titled "Attention is all you need"). It was written by 2 Indians, 1 German, 1 British Canadian, 1 Pole, 1 Ukrainian, and 2 US born people. These people came to America, worked together and changed the world as we know it. Why would we want to stop it? Has this immigration been bad for American workers? Far from it. These immigrants are the lifeblood of the tech industry, without them the center of tech would be Beijing.
        ethanwillis 5mo ago
        Why not "2 Indian born people, 1 German born person, 1 Canadian born person, 1 Polish born person, 1 Ukrainian born person, and 2 US born people?"
  - mikert89 5mo ago
    you fundamentally dont understand economics
  - acdha 5mo ago
    If it’s “100% false”, I’d think you could have addressed the point. Do you think that H1-Bs have had the same negotiating power as permanent residents and citizens? Do you think that companies-especially the huge contractors and enterprise vendors who hired so many of them—did not exploit them? I’m not saying that there aren’t people who really lived up to the idea that the best in the world were coming here—I’ve known a few of them myself—but that there were a much greater number of people who were not in that class and it wasn’t exactly a secret that their managers knew they could be imposed on more than their equivalently-skilled colleagues.
yabutlivnWoods 5mo ago
"Truly innovative". I wrote my first neural net in the late 90s. Based on nothing but an old geocities post some rando put up about training a model to only unlock a pet door for their cat. I implemented the same and it worked. Where you see true innovation I see run of the mill. OpenAI, Google, etc are propping up data center rental business they came to rely on to titillate biology with whatever spaghetti that sticks. That's it. The interesting science isn't happening anywhere close to big tech. The mathematics of LLMs exists in textbooks from 1950s. Your entire comment chain here is little more than reciting propaganda.
- lateforwork 5mo ago
  > I wrote my first neural net in the late 90s Why aren't we using it, if that's all the world needs?
  - yabutlivnWoods 5mo ago
    Oh this game, huh? If your powers of analysis were worth anything you would be running the world not copy-pasting hype straight from CNBC and Big Tech PR As you are not running the world your analysis is worthless. As such I say; good day, sir.
    - abenga 5mo ago
      Why is it important that Google (or any of these large companies) only hire Americans for their jobs in the first place? They are global companies now, they make money from everywhere. Why is the insular "Americans only" idea worthy of consideration at all?
      - joquarky 5mo ago
        By this logic, Google should relocate to some abstract "global" location.
      - pandaman 5mo ago
        The law forces American corporations to hire Americans, various work visas are exceptions from the law given under certain conditions. It appears the companies are abusing these exceptions and violate these conditions. There is no such thing as a "global company" in the law, with the exception of foreign consulates all the entities that hire people in the US are American corporations.
woeirua 5mo ago
I'm not opposed to hiring the cream of the crop using H1Bs, but that would only be a few thousand people a year. The vast majority of H1Bs though are people taking jobs that Americans can definitely do.

acdha 5mo ago

How many “best in the world” people are we talking about, though? Based on what I’ve seen that’s a very small percentage (maybe 5%) while the rest were being hired by companies who valued having workers with limited negotiating power. (I’m not opposed to immigration at all but it was transparent how for decades the industry resisted any change which would make it easier for a skilled H1-B worker to take a better job)

lateforwork 5mo ago
> having workers with limited negotiating power Sorry, this is 100% false. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta etc. do not hire H-1Bs in order to depress wages. That does happen, but not at these companies. It typically happens when hiring IT workers.
- bradlys 5mo ago
  These companies were all guilty of wage collusion years ago. Their culture has not gotten any better about this since.
- newfriend 5mo ago
  The mere presence of H1-B workers depresses wages systemically.
  - lateforwork 5mo ago
    In the early 1990s a good software engineer was paid $40K starting salary, and good companies like Sun Microsystems paid $45K. If you adjust that for inflation it is around $100K. But good companies in silicon valley today pay $120K plus stock grants (so around $170K or so), and Meta and Google pay much more. So software engineer salaries have gone up dramatically in the last 35 years H-1B visa has been around. In fact, the H-1B visa is the reason the salaries have gone up. Without it the industry would be stagnant, just like non-tech S&P 500 companies and most companies in Europe in the same time period.
    - newfriend 5mo ago
      Are you trying to argue that increased supply of labor is responsible for increasing wages? As others have said, H1-B has been good for companies, and bad for American workers. The same companies who were found to be colluding to keep wages down. Europe is stagnant because of regulation, not because of immigration.
      - lateforwork 5mo ago
        > Are you trying to argue that increased supply of labor is responsible for increasing wages? I am saying the reason silicon valley exists is because of the immigration of the smartest people from around the world. High Tech needs the best in the world, not the best in the US. Consider the seminal research paper that kicked off the AI revolution (titled "Attention is all you need"). It was written by 2 Indians, 1 German, 1 British Canadian, 1 Pole, 1 Ukrainian, and 2 US born people. These people came to America, worked together and changed the world as we know it. Why would we want to stop it? Has this immigration been bad for American workers? Far from it. These immigrants are the lifeblood of the tech industry, without them the center of tech would be Beijing.
        ethanwillis 5mo ago
        Why not "2 Indian born people, 1 German born person, 1 Canadian born person, 1 Polish born person, 1 Ukrainian born person, and 2 US born people?"
- mikert89 5mo ago
  you fundamentally dont understand economics
- acdha 5mo ago
  If it’s “100% false”, I’d think you could have addressed the point. Do you think that H1-Bs have had the same negotiating power as permanent residents and citizens? Do you think that companies-especially the huge contractors and enterprise vendors who hired so many of them—did not exploit them? I’m not saying that there aren’t people who really lived up to the idea that the best in the world were coming here—I’ve known a few of them myself—but that there were a much greater number of people who were not in that class and it wasn’t exactly a secret that their managers knew they could be imposed on more than their equivalently-skilled colleagues.

yabutlivnWoods 5mo ago

"Truly innovative". I wrote my first neural net in the late 90s. Based on nothing but an old geocities post some rando put up about training a model to only unlock a pet door for their cat. I implemented the same and it worked. Where you see true innovation I see run of the mill. OpenAI, Google, etc are propping up data center rental business they came to rely on to titillate biology with whatever spaghetti that sticks. That's it. The interesting science isn't happening anywhere close to big tech. The mathematics of LLMs exists in textbooks from 1950s. Your entire comment chain here is little more than reciting propaganda.

lateforwork 5mo ago
> I wrote my first neural net in the late 90s Why aren't we using it, if that's all the world needs?
- yabutlivnWoods 5mo ago
  Oh this game, huh? If your powers of analysis were worth anything you would be running the world not copy-pasting hype straight from CNBC and Big Tech PR As you are not running the world your analysis is worthless. As such I say; good day, sir.
  - abenga 5mo ago
    Why is it important that Google (or any of these large companies) only hire Americans for their jobs in the first place? They are global companies now, they make money from everywhere. Why is the insular "Americans only" idea worthy of consideration at all?
    - joquarky 5mo ago
      By this logic, Google should relocate to some abstract "global" location.
    - pandaman 5mo ago
      The law forces American corporations to hire Americans, various work visas are exceptions from the law given under certain conditions. It appears the companies are abusing these exceptions and violate these conditions. There is no such thing as a "global company" in the law, with the exception of foreign consulates all the entities that hire people in the US are American corporations.

woeirua 5mo ago

I'm not opposed to hiring the cream of the crop using H1Bs, but that would only be a few thousand people a year. The vast majority of H1Bs though are people taking jobs that Americans can definitely do.