8 ms·

The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

74 points by skmurphy 15d ago

skmurphy 15d ago
Conclusion: "There is plenty of international talent that can and should be leveraged in the appropriate places and the proper ways. There are many instances where you’re going to want to hire a leading expert in a technical field. But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..] We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring." Related earlier post by Mark Atwood: https://markatwood.substack.com/p/america-is-an-idea-not-an-economic https://markatwood.substack.com/p/america-is-an-idea-not-an-...
- toomuchtodo 15d ago
  > We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring." YC partner Ankit Gupta: hiring Americans first is DEI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467325 - August 2026 (2 comments) H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025 (4 comments) India's Tata Consultancy Was Gaming the US Visa System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088906 - February 2025 (59 comments) How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 - July 2024 (57 comments) [https://github.com/BloombergGraphics/2024-h1b-immigration-data https://github.com/BloombergGraphics/2024-h1b-immigration-da...] The Secret Way Silicon Valley Uses the H-1B Program - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/silicon-valley-s-h-1b-secret https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/silicon-v... | https://archive.today/qffNT https://archive.today/qffNT - June 2017 Ergo, laws will be required to "encourage" the corporate paperclip maximizer apparatus. When did asking nicely ever work? "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising the lawnmower."
  - skmurphy 15d ago
    “If Something Cannot Go on Forever, It Will Stop.“ Stein's Law
    - toomuchtodo 15d ago
      "The labor market can remain irrational, adverse, and potentially fraudulent longer than you can remain solvent." -- me
    - nkrisc 15d ago
      Of course, but there’s a wide gulf between slamming into a wall at 80mph and gently rolling to a stop. The latter requires foresight and action, however.
      - SpicyLemonZest 15d ago
        I don't think the famously young-skewed tech industry is at any risk of slamming into a wall. If Google finds in 2035 it's running out of good seniors in their 30s because they haven't been mentoring college grads well enough, there'll be plenty of experts in their 50s and 60s to pull back in from management or FIRE or age discrimination.
  - chistev 15d ago
    Your ability to consistently cite relevant sources/articles in your comments is impressive to me. It's a sign of a well informed person. Keep it up!
    - toomuchtodo 14d ago
      Thank you for the kind words. I remember everything I’ve ever read, it’s simply how fast I can aggregate links and threads based on keywords from HN search and my internal knowledge base/graph. Objective data, evidence, and facts are important as a shared foundation to discuss upon.
      - 14d ago
- glitchc 15d ago
  > But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..] > We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring. It's tough to square this noble thought with what's actually happening in corporate America. The culture of investing in training and mentoring to foster employee growth has been eroding for the past 40 years (if not more), to where it only seems to exist in limited capacity in legacy institutions and is completely absent in new (tech) firms. How does one convince business leaders to bring it back?
  - topspin 15d ago
    > How does one convince business leaders to bring it back? There are precisely 1.0 ways to do that: make all of the alternatives more expensive. That's it. Nothing else will move the needle. I don't believe it is possible: every policy one can imagine, short of establishing a GULAG system to compel compliance, has powerful opposing interests, including workers themselves. It would require the sort of comprehensive and sustained focus that a nation aspiring to nearly suicidal liberalism can not deliver.
    - bluGill 15d ago
      Every system I can imagine as a real unintended consequence that is worse than what we have. The ideal should move to needle back - but there is no way to make that happen that isn't worse than where we are now.
  - bluGill 15d ago
    When nobody is going to work for the same company for decades what is the point? This is both management's fault for not valuing the people they have (it is very common for cost of living raises to not match inflation or much less increased value as people get better), layoffs; but also workers for looking for a new job (only partially because of the above) when they have one. I think in the ideal world 30-60% of the people who retire from your company should have started there just out of school. Much less than that and you don't get the value of experience built up over time. Much more and you miss out of good ideas others are doing. However there are many ways the world will never be ideal...
- nkrisc 15d ago
  It’s going to need to be strong “encouragement”, either monetary or regulatory. Because it is advantageous to be the only one who doesn’t invest in it while reaping the benefits from those who do. So very few do.
  - bluGill 15d ago
    That is easy to say. You can put it on a political mailing "vote for me and I'll"... However details matter. I've yet to see any detailed proposal that isn't obviously worse than where we are now.
alephnerd 15d ago
Why do you think GCCs are a thing and Google India wages [0] are now reaching Poland levels [1] for mid-career Googlers. These are multinational companies - not American companies. No one complained when Google and their like moved hiring from the Bay Area and New York to North Carolina despite both having diametrically opposing politics. [0] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/locations/india https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... [1] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/locations/poland https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...
davesque 15d ago
The article doesn't address what I think are the main complaints about H-1B: that it is mostly used to cut costs and hire people who have very little freedom to switch jobs. That and all the trickery with ghost jobs meant to only give the appearance of hiring stateside. The example given is also not great. Von Braun was one remarkable foreign expert in a leadership position. On the other hand, in my experience, many H-1B hires tend to occupy low-level jobs; ironically the very ones that the author says will be filled by motivated Americans. I mean...just try working at any American FAANG. The evidence is totally in your face.
- mlboss 15d ago
  That is the real reason. Immigrants are cheap and will work hard maybe at the cost of quality. Companies will to hire cheap or will outsource to cheaper countries. I think every generation had cheap foreign labor coming to America which fueled the growth. Right now it is H1b labor.
- brightball 15d ago
  > The article doesn't address what I think are the main complaints Over the last 20 years, I've noticed this is most of political journalism today. Post a headline refuting the thing, ignore the primary issue from the thing you're refuting. People who don't already deeply understand the issue don't know any better. Everything can be factually correct. It's all just framing by what you choose to leave out / ignore.
valicord 15d ago
False dichotomy. An H1B hire who has graduated from a US university and will receive a green card in a few years and become a US citizen after another 5 contributes to "the next generation of US talent" in the same way as John from Chicago.
- Congeec 15d ago
  EB-2/EB-3 green cards which an H-1B holder usually pursues are quota-capped per country of birthplace. An Indian born applicant may have to wait for over 100 years.
- jazzpush2 15d ago
  You present the false dichotomy without qualifying 'the same way'. Is it in terms of collective taxes paid? Does that include or exclude family? Or is it in terms of money spent in the local economy? Or in terms of money sent abroad to other economies? Maybe it's in more direct terms of contributing to the next generation of talent, like volunteering, coaching, or hosting scholastic events for the community? Or maybe it's an entirely other class of event, like a club exclusively for specific races/citizens of a specific country? Almost all of my co-workers who were educated in the US but came from abroad send their earnings abroad, were part of 'X Country Citizens' clubs in college, and don't socialize too much outside of their native language. I don't think that's a problem, and it's just anecdotal, but it's certainly not the 'same way as John from Chicago'.
  - valicord 14d ago
    I meant in terms of contributions to the economy and talent pool, yes. > don't socialize too much outside of their native language If lack of socializing is an important factor, one should stop hiring introverts as well.
GlibMonkeyDeath 15d ago
"The H-1B program was started with the vision of finding von Brauns across other industries and bringing them into the US" Is this true? I thought the the "O" visa accomplished this. H-1B is for specific worker shortages. Of course, a "shortage" from a company's perspective is "no Americans are applying for my position", which isn't necessarily because there are no qualified Americans to hire...
- SpicyLemonZest 15d ago
  Yes, it’s true. The H-1B program was redesigned that way in the Immigration Act of 1990 that introduced the O visa category; before that, the H-1B criteria formally required that recipients have “distinguished merit and ability” and perform services “of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability”.
  - GlibMonkeyDeath 15d ago
    Ah yes - the older H1 program started in 1952 (I was confused by the article calling the H1 visa "H-1B" - they aren't the same.)
- tehlike 15d ago
  So even though O-1 is intended for extra ordinary abilities, it's far from one.
- wakawaka28 15d ago
  That isn't what it means to have a shortage. In many cases Americans are discouraged from applying for these jobs. They can overspecify the criteria or be overly skeptical about your resume, write the job listing poorly, or hide the job listing entirely. What a shortage really means from their perspective is that they can't find enough workers for the price they want to pay (as opposed to what they can afford). However, I don't find that satisfying. I might have a legitimate business idea that would work only if I could find 100 great engineers willing to work for far below average. That would be considered insane in isolation, but if several large companies get together and issue the same complaint like "We can't move ahead because there are not enough engineers in our price range" then they call it a shortage. But I don't think American workers should have to tolerate these people flooding the market just because they can make money by doing so lol...
YesBox 15d ago
When I was in high school, I took a physics class. I think I scraped by but one thing the teacher said that has stuck with me ever since was "when you want to test a hypothesis, set the variables to extreme numbers". Very useful framework IMO! If we pursued the "Most Qualified" in its truest form, then ~95%[1] of the jobs in this country would be handed over to foreigners. In isolation, this would be great for US companies. In reality, 95% of the local population would riot. If we pursued "only hire Americans", then our growth as a country would be stunted, and we'd lose our global competitive edge. Somewhere between is a balanced medium. Side observation: I've noticed tech leaders/CEOs/PG have been choosing (or succumbing) to what the algorithm wants them to say or how phrase. I stopped following all of them because I can feel my emotions being manipulated whenever I read what they have to say. [1] The USA is less than 5% of the worlds population.
- mgaunard 15d ago
  In practice, you hire the most qualified within the pool of people that can reasonably work for you: right to work in the right country, compatible hours, is able to connect socially with the rest of your team, etc.
- dstnn 15d ago
  You clearly have worked in a bubble. I find more qualified people in the usa than out of it, this is more of a payment issue than a lack of skill issue.
- eigencoder 15d ago
  I don't follow that "Most Qualified" would mean 95% of jobs going to foreigners. I get that the U.S. is 4-5% of the world's population, but if I live in San Antonio, Texas, the pool of plumbers for my house must also live in San Antonio, Texas, meaning that 99.9+% of the world is not remotely qualified for the job.
  - napoleond 15d ago
    I mean, this debate is about immigration, right? So current location doesn't super matter, assuming you can amortize the cost of relocating a plumber across several years' worth of plumbing work.
fxd 15d ago
[flagged]
sobellian 15d ago
I don't like the implied assumption that you can only do one or the other. To use the author's own story, the US had both von Braun and Johnson. Also, there are just many scenarios where you can't afford to train someone from scratch or tolerate a potentially poor hire and that's just reality. Sometimes you really do need the best person you can find.
solidsnack9000 15d ago
It's not a matter of economics, corporate policy or belief in people -- it's a strategic matter. A country needs a secure and stable pipeline for personnel as much as for any other strategic asset. A country also needs to keep up and learn from other countries. That means working with and integrating technologies, ideas and, yes, personnel from other countries. It's a balance thing and Anduril has a hard job in trying to strike the balance, but they have to do it. The defense industry is not simply a number-goes-up operation.
- wbl 15d ago
  US higher education is that pipeline now, and it didn't exist in the 1930's and 1940's the way it does now.
- wakawaka28 15d ago
  It's funny how the loyalties of imported "talent" are not front and center in any discussion of how their presence is "strategically important." I think we are getting strategically shafted by lax immigration laws.
ecshafer 15d ago
I have seen H1Bs used for basic Java development, Desktop Support, CRM managemetn, Marketing, Project Managers, and all sorts of basic office work. The idea its used for the best and brightest is absurd. When you also count the massive fraud in H1B, people looking for kickbacks, racial preferences, lying on resumes (I once interviewed an H1B with 4 pages on their resume, couldn't answer a single question from what I pulled out of the resume, and got overruled by the manager on the hiring board). There is a massive amount of office work that can be done by a bright high schooler or community college grad, but gets shunted off to a body shop who mass applies H1B. Several years ago Disney fired their IT staff and replaced them with H1B, this was in the news. There was obviously not a talent shortage, and plenty of American citizens can pass the A+ or various microsoft sysadmin certs that "qualify" someone for IT work.
- phainopepla2 15d ago
  > I have seen H1Bs used for basic Java development, Desktop Support [...] Working in non-FAANG corporate America, these types of roles are the only thing thing I've ever seen H1B hires used for. They've run the gamut from incompetent to quite good, but none have ever been the "best and brightest". It saddens me that the left no longer seems to care about protecting American workers.
  - mc32 15d ago
    You know, they used to. Bernie spoke against relocating refugees (from Serbia or something) back in the day due to the fact he had unemployed local Vermonters. They used to care. They had cared less since the second Reagan admin, but completely abandoned any pretense after GW's first term win. What I've seen is a local workforce (typically, then a mix of 1st gen Americans) being asked to train their replacements. Some replacements on Visas and some remote. But what gall to ask you to train your [cheaper] replacements.
    - wakawaka28 14d ago
      You're right, they used to care or at least said the right things. Then I guess they realized that they could get more voters by simply importing them lol... >What I've seen is a local workforce (typically, then a mix of 1st gen Americans) being asked to train their replacements. Some replacements on Visas and some remote. But what gall to ask you to train your [cheaper] replacements. This destroys their entire argument about the necessity of the imports, even if it is relatively rare. (Note that I don't think it's rare to be replaced by foreigners. I think it's rare to be forced or incentivized to train them, especially with knowledge that you will actually be replaced.) Recently I heard something crazy like 9 of 10 new jobs since the pandemic is held by foreign-born people, even as many US-born are unemployed. 20% of US-born men is unemployed. This is not a primary source but it should get you started if you're interested: https://www.numbersusa.org/blog/nine-out-of-ten-new-jobs-have-gone-to-immigrants-since-2020/ https://www.numbersusa.org/blog/nine-out-of-ten-new-jobs-hav...
redlewel 15d ago
H1B is not about finding geniuses, this is O-1 Visa program. The H1B exists to find laborers in areas where we have a shortage of qualified people in US. Given the fact that in many fields we have lots of American graduates that struggle to get jobs, H1B currently has no legitimate purpose in America. It should be abolished entirely.
- tehlike 15d ago
  There's a playbook someone on X published (and bragged about it). Borderline fraudulent imho. So even though O-1 is intended for extra ordinary abilities, it's far from one.
  - jazzpush2 15d ago
    O-1 is about as far as you can get these days. Just search O-1 on x.com and see the type of people that have it - often designers, 'product' folks, etc. working for no-name YC startups.
    - tehlike 14d ago
      The no name yc startup is fine, but the qualifications / proof of extraordinary ability is just non existent.
- andrewla 15d ago
  They both have similar roles, but O-1 is an immigrant visa and H-1B is a non-immigrant visa (a temporary worker visa). Everything else is downstream of that.
  - pandaman 14d ago
    Both are non-immigrant visas. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary... https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-spec...
breadwinner 15d ago
One of the issues is conflation of IT jobs and High Tech jobs. Those making laws don't understand the difference -- they are all "computer jobs" to them. IT does not require immigrant labor. Companies such as Infosys and Tata don't need to be operating in the US. There are plenty of US workers available to do the job. But High Tech is different. High Tech needs the best in the world, not the best in the US. The US leads the world in tech not because the best ideas were all American but because the best people in the world immigrated to the US. Stopping this will be ruinous to American prosperity. The seminal research paper that kicked off the AI revolution (titled "Attention is all you need") 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 undercut Americans? Far from it. These immigrants are the lifeblood of the tech industry, and their innovations create jobs.
- wakawaka28 15d ago
  I think everyone (or virtually everyone) is OK with actual world-leading researchers coming to the US. But what we don't want is the labor market flooded with foreign "talent". The system is designed to try to get the researchers and noteworthy people, but corrupt people have found ways around all of it. There are paper mills, degree mills, cheating rings, etc. Plus firms that exist solely to funnel foreigners into the US for a fee. There is always an economic argument to be made for importing the cheapest or allegedly "best" labor, but it's mostly about saving money even if it means destroying domestic workers. It sounds better when we're talking about a scientist instead of a construction worker or meat packer, but it's kind of the same problem. There are many cases of American workers being forced to train H1-B replacements, or being blatantly discriminated against for being, shall we say, obviously American. If foreign researchers are able to prove themselves abroad and contribute as you say, I assume they can continue doing that in most cases without coming to the US to take jobs. If immigrants are such a great resource, why are poor countries not trying harder to keep those people from leaving? Why doesn't China import a bunch of Indians for IT work, or vice versa?
  - breadwinner 15d ago
petcat 15d ago
> An H-1B hire should not simply be marginally better than an American counterpart. They should provide such a leap forward in capabilities such that the rest of the company is elevated in their own knowledge and expertise. This is an important thing that was recently addressed by the new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H-1B visa. It is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since the types of roles that InfoSys and other foreign tech consulting firms are staffing do not meet the bar of "leap forward in capabilities". A US company is welcome to sponsor (and pay for) a visa for a truly exceptional worker. But not just anyone because they're cheap and minimally-capable. [1] https://thefederal.com/category/news/h1b-visa-indian-tech-workers-return-india-us-jobs-245525 https://thefederal.com/category/news/h1b-visa-indian-tech-wo...
- samtp 15d ago
  Seems more likely to just lead to larger offices in India, reducing high earners here in America (even if only temporary) and reducing the amount of money that is recycled through American cities.
  - dominotw 15d ago
    this seems like common retort. hire h1b or else.... we open a role on linkedin for a data engineer for about 6 hrs and we got 500+ applicants and vast majority were indeed qualifed on paper. I am baffled by employers who cant seem to find anyone in the country that doesnt need work authorization. Love to hear what types of roles and where this is happening.
    - nightpool 15d ago
      Have you interviewed any of these candidates yet? I doubt that you have 500+ real candidates. My experience in the past 12 months of hiring is that you'll have maybe 10 "qualified on paper" candidates, and 490 AI-generated profiles.
      - dominotw 15d ago
patwork 15d ago
The open secret of the H1B program is that the credentials are fake. The system whitewashes candidates to provide the illusion of these credentials, but they are in fact no more qualified than an American candidate.
- utokyoberkeley 15d ago
  [flagged]
- formerlurker 14d ago
  There is also no guarantee that the people you hire do not have criminal or psychological issues because these things are not checked or shared internationally. For example, a woman in my college got killed by a foreign PhD student because she rejected his romantic advances. I also find people can have high degrees of education on paper but hold beliefs that seem more aligned with people in the 50’s. I don’t want to work with people who think yelling and obeying the boss blindly is appropriate.
mlboss 15d ago
Few facts to add color to different point of views: - PG wants cheap labor so that we can get cheap/hard working employees for startups with a fear of deportation - Palmer cannot hire people on visas because they cannot easily clear security clearance that is required to work in Defense sector. Its better to align with current Government to get contracts.
mjcohen 15d ago
And then you have the Trump administration's war on competence.
ag1524 15d ago
I don't like that immigration is framed as a left-center vs right issue. Around 1900 the socialists were against immigration because it displaced local workers and capitalists used it to drive down wages. So, ironically, Paul Graham supports the right wing position and Luckey the left-center if you frame it that way! The most qualified for physical jobs are the healthiest. By allowing unlimited immigration, you literally let in the healthiest and most persistent to the detriment of less healthy locals. Eugenics? You can frame it that way, too. Being born in a desirable country has disadvantages now. People from all over the world buy property and drive up prices, people from all over the world compete for local jobs, take university places (almost free in the EU). That is locust capitalism and the distinction between the von Brauns and the regular H1Bs that the article makes is sensible.
jazzpush2 15d ago
I have multiple friends who studied CS and graduated in the last few years and couldn't find a job. These are people who grew up in the states, paid taxes here, came from (sometimes generations of) families who paid taxes here. I myself have pay $XXX,XXX in taxes a year. It's absolutely bullshit that H1B and O1 visas can come here and take routine CS jobs that US citizens are more-than-qualified for. The narrative of the need for these visas is pure corporate-shill speak.
cyberax 15d ago
Let me put it this way: the US school system sucks. It produces great drama artists, athletes, and marketing specialists but not STEM professionals. You can see it here: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 - just 6% of US school graduates go to study engineering (there are almost no foreign-born students doing bachelors in the US). This has been the case since forever. So more than half of the STEM graduates of the _US_ universities are foreigners: https://www.ets.org/grad-school-journey/international-students-stem-programs.html https://www.ets.org/grad-school-journey/international-studen... And if anything, the adult daycare (aka "school") situation has been getting worse for quite a while.
- sobellian 15d ago
  The US is a big country so it's hard to generalize. But if you take the "default" US culture, it has been either ambivalent or hostile toward nerds for a long time. People who rightly point this out get shouted down as being anti-American (see Ramaswamy's infamous post). They shouldn't shoot the messenger. They should help their kids tinker with cool garage experiments.
  - cyberax 14d ago
    It's not just the culture, it's the school system. Nerds are distrusted pretty much everywhere. But if you have a school system that rewards achievement in STEM disciplines, you get better outcomes in STEM disciplines (see: China, xUSSR countries, India, South Korea).
phendrenad2 15d ago
I see this debate as not really being about immigration, but as a facet of the eternal war between plutocrats and socialists. Plutocrats prey on socialist countries, exploiting their high standard of living and high social trust. Socialism more often than not arises when plutocrats have hollowed out a country and left it fallow, and interferes with the plutocrats second phase where they "brain drain" the now-desperate people and use them as shock troops in their next campaign. Plutocrats want to restrict immigration to the needs of business, while socialists want immigration to be as egalitarian as possible. As such, socialists and plutocrats are natural enemies. Socialist countries sometimes manage to shake off the plutocrats, and in fact America's "melting pot" idea was a well-timed inoculation against them.
xnx 15d ago
With AI rapidly exceeding the tech knowledge of even the most qualified workers, is the benefit of an H1B worker that significant? General communication and strategic skills might be stronger in domestic workers.
try-working 14d ago
There's no such thing as an innate most qualified person. Zuck was never the most qualified to be CEO of Meta. He is now, because of what he's done. At the same time there's an infinite number of jobs he is poorly qualified for. Strict qualification can only be measured in a extreme niche cases. You founded an area of research, so you're the most qualified to work on that at Google. You have a massive Linux project, then maybe Torvalds or his core maintainers are the only ones who fit. But outside of that, people become qualified because of what they do, and before they did it, they were unqualified. As an example, I'm sure there are many people at OAI and Ant who are today world experts at research and training and infra. But they became that by just doing the job. Take their same resume from 5 years ago and they may not even reach the interview if they applied for the same role. The what does qualified mean, how do you measure and define it? Countries need to develop their own talent and individuals need to develop themselves.

74 points by skmurphy 15d ago

Conclusion: "There is plenty of international talent that can and should be leveraged in the appropriate places and the proper ways. There are many instances where you’re going to want to hire a leading expert in a technical field. But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..] We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring." Related earlier post by Mark Atwood: https://markatwood.substack.com/p/america-is-an-idea-not-an-economic https://markatwood.substack.com/p/america-is-an-idea-not-an-...

toomuchtodo 15d ago
> We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring." YC partner Ankit Gupta: hiring Americans first is DEI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467325 - August 2026 (2 comments) H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44398978 - June 2025 (4 comments) India's Tata Consultancy Was Gaming the US Visa System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43088906 - February 2025 (59 comments) How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123945 - July 2024 (57 comments) [https://github.com/BloombergGraphics/2024-h1b-immigration-data https://github.com/BloombergGraphics/2024-h1b-immigration-da...] The Secret Way Silicon Valley Uses the H-1B Program - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/silicon-valley-s-h-1b-secret https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-06/silicon-v... | https://archive.today/qffNT https://archive.today/qffNT - June 2017 Ergo, laws will be required to "encourage" the corporate paperclip maximizer apparatus. When did asking nicely ever work? "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising the lawnmower."
- skmurphy 15d ago
  “If Something Cannot Go on Forever, It Will Stop.“ Stein's Law
  - toomuchtodo 15d ago
    "The labor market can remain irrational, adverse, and potentially fraudulent longer than you can remain solvent." -- me
  - nkrisc 15d ago
    Of course, but there’s a wide gulf between slamming into a wall at 80mph and gently rolling to a stop. The latter requires foresight and action, however.
    - SpicyLemonZest 15d ago
      I don't think the famously young-skewed tech industry is at any risk of slamming into a wall. If Google finds in 2035 it's running out of good seniors in their 30s because they haven't been mentoring college grads well enough, there'll be plenty of experts in their 50s and 60s to pull back in from management or FIRE or age discrimination.
- chistev 15d ago
  Your ability to consistently cite relevant sources/articles in your comments is impressive to me. It's a sign of a well informed person. Keep it up!
  - toomuchtodo 14d ago
    Thank you for the kind words. I remember everything I’ve ever read, it’s simply how fast I can aggregate links and threads based on keywords from HN search and my internal knowledge base/graph. Objective data, evidence, and facts are important as a shared foundation to discuss upon.
    - 14d ago
glitchc 15d ago
> But most jobs, the qualifications are a core technical and subject competency combined with diligence and a willingness to learn. [..] > We need to encourage a corporate mindset that believes in the importance of building up the American talent pool to tackle not only the challenge in front of them but the array of challenges that the future will bring. It's tough to square this noble thought with what's actually happening in corporate America. The culture of investing in training and mentoring to foster employee growth has been eroding for the past 40 years (if not more), to where it only seems to exist in limited capacity in legacy institutions and is completely absent in new (tech) firms. How does one convince business leaders to bring it back?
- topspin 15d ago
  > How does one convince business leaders to bring it back? There are precisely 1.0 ways to do that: make all of the alternatives more expensive. That's it. Nothing else will move the needle. I don't believe it is possible: every policy one can imagine, short of establishing a GULAG system to compel compliance, has powerful opposing interests, including workers themselves. It would require the sort of comprehensive and sustained focus that a nation aspiring to nearly suicidal liberalism can not deliver.
  - bluGill 15d ago
    Every system I can imagine as a real unintended consequence that is worse than what we have. The ideal should move to needle back - but there is no way to make that happen that isn't worse than where we are now.
- bluGill 15d ago
  When nobody is going to work for the same company for decades what is the point? This is both management's fault for not valuing the people they have (it is very common for cost of living raises to not match inflation or much less increased value as people get better), layoffs; but also workers for looking for a new job (only partially because of the above) when they have one. I think in the ideal world 30-60% of the people who retire from your company should have started there just out of school. Much less than that and you don't get the value of experience built up over time. Much more and you miss out of good ideas others are doing. However there are many ways the world will never be ideal...
nkrisc 15d ago
It’s going to need to be strong “encouragement”, either monetary or regulatory. Because it is advantageous to be the only one who doesn’t invest in it while reaping the benefits from those who do. So very few do.
- bluGill 15d ago
  That is easy to say. You can put it on a political mailing "vote for me and I'll"... However details matter. I've yet to see any detailed proposal that isn't obviously worse than where we are now.

alephnerd 15d ago

Why do you think GCCs are a thing and Google India wages [0] are now reaching Poland levels [1] for mid-career Googlers. These are multinational companies - not American companies. No one complained when Google and their like moved hiring from the Bay Area and New York to North Carolina despite both having diametrically opposing politics. [0] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/locations/india https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en... [1] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-engineer/locations/poland https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

davesque 15d ago

The article doesn't address what I think are the main complaints about H-1B: that it is mostly used to cut costs and hire people who have very little freedom to switch jobs. That and all the trickery with ghost jobs meant to only give the appearance of hiring stateside. The example given is also not great. Von Braun was one remarkable foreign expert in a leadership position. On the other hand, in my experience, many H-1B hires tend to occupy low-level jobs; ironically the very ones that the author says will be filled by motivated Americans. I mean...just try working at any American FAANG. The evidence is totally in your face.

mlboss 15d ago
That is the real reason. Immigrants are cheap and will work hard maybe at the cost of quality. Companies will to hire cheap or will outsource to cheaper countries. I think every generation had cheap foreign labor coming to America which fueled the growth. Right now it is H1b labor.
brightball 15d ago
> The article doesn't address what I think are the main complaints Over the last 20 years, I've noticed this is most of political journalism today. Post a headline refuting the thing, ignore the primary issue from the thing you're refuting. People who don't already deeply understand the issue don't know any better. Everything can be factually correct. It's all just framing by what you choose to leave out / ignore.

valicord 15d ago

False dichotomy. An H1B hire who has graduated from a US university and will receive a green card in a few years and become a US citizen after another 5 contributes to "the next generation of US talent" in the same way as John from Chicago.

Congeec 15d ago
EB-2/EB-3 green cards which an H-1B holder usually pursues are quota-capped per country of birthplace. An Indian born applicant may have to wait for over 100 years.
jazzpush2 15d ago
You present the false dichotomy without qualifying 'the same way'. Is it in terms of collective taxes paid? Does that include or exclude family? Or is it in terms of money spent in the local economy? Or in terms of money sent abroad to other economies? Maybe it's in more direct terms of contributing to the next generation of talent, like volunteering, coaching, or hosting scholastic events for the community? Or maybe it's an entirely other class of event, like a club exclusively for specific races/citizens of a specific country? Almost all of my co-workers who were educated in the US but came from abroad send their earnings abroad, were part of 'X Country Citizens' clubs in college, and don't socialize too much outside of their native language. I don't think that's a problem, and it's just anecdotal, but it's certainly not the 'same way as John from Chicago'.
- valicord 14d ago
  I meant in terms of contributions to the economy and talent pool, yes. > don't socialize too much outside of their native language If lack of socializing is an important factor, one should stop hiring introverts as well.

GlibMonkeyDeath 15d ago

"The H-1B program was started with the vision of finding von Brauns across other industries and bringing them into the US" Is this true? I thought the the "O" visa accomplished this. H-1B is for specific worker shortages. Of course, a "shortage" from a company's perspective is "no Americans are applying for my position", which isn't necessarily because there are no qualified Americans to hire...

SpicyLemonZest 15d ago
Yes, it’s true. The H-1B program was redesigned that way in the Immigration Act of 1990 that introduced the O visa category; before that, the H-1B criteria formally required that recipients have “distinguished merit and ability” and perform services “of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability”.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 15d ago
  Ah yes - the older H1 program started in 1952 (I was confused by the article calling the H1 visa "H-1B" - they aren't the same.)
tehlike 15d ago
So even though O-1 is intended for extra ordinary abilities, it's far from one.
wakawaka28 15d ago
That isn't what it means to have a shortage. In many cases Americans are discouraged from applying for these jobs. They can overspecify the criteria or be overly skeptical about your resume, write the job listing poorly, or hide the job listing entirely. What a shortage really means from their perspective is that they can't find enough workers for the price they want to pay (as opposed to what they can afford). However, I don't find that satisfying. I might have a legitimate business idea that would work only if I could find 100 great engineers willing to work for far below average. That would be considered insane in isolation, but if several large companies get together and issue the same complaint like "We can't move ahead because there are not enough engineers in our price range" then they call it a shortage. But I don't think American workers should have to tolerate these people flooding the market just because they can make money by doing so lol...

YesBox 15d ago

When I was in high school, I took a physics class. I think I scraped by but one thing the teacher said that has stuck with me ever since was "when you want to test a hypothesis, set the variables to extreme numbers". Very useful framework IMO! If we pursued the "Most Qualified" in its truest form, then ~95%[1] of the jobs in this country would be handed over to foreigners. In isolation, this would be great for US companies. In reality, 95% of the local population would riot. If we pursued "only hire Americans", then our growth as a country would be stunted, and we'd lose our global competitive edge. Somewhere between is a balanced medium. Side observation: I've noticed tech leaders/CEOs/PG have been choosing (or succumbing) to what the algorithm wants them to say or how phrase. I stopped following all of them because I can feel my emotions being manipulated whenever I read what they have to say. [1] The USA is less than 5% of the worlds population.

mgaunard 15d ago
In practice, you hire the most qualified within the pool of people that can reasonably work for you: right to work in the right country, compatible hours, is able to connect socially with the rest of your team, etc.
dstnn 15d ago
You clearly have worked in a bubble. I find more qualified people in the usa than out of it, this is more of a payment issue than a lack of skill issue.
eigencoder 15d ago
I don't follow that "Most Qualified" would mean 95% of jobs going to foreigners. I get that the U.S. is 4-5% of the world's population, but if I live in San Antonio, Texas, the pool of plumbers for my house must also live in San Antonio, Texas, meaning that 99.9+% of the world is not remotely qualified for the job.
- napoleond 15d ago
  I mean, this debate is about immigration, right? So current location doesn't super matter, assuming you can amortize the cost of relocating a plumber across several years' worth of plumbing work.

fxd 15d ago

[flagged]

sobellian 15d ago

I don't like the implied assumption that you can only do one or the other. To use the author's own story, the US had both von Braun and Johnson. Also, there are just many scenarios where you can't afford to train someone from scratch or tolerate a potentially poor hire and that's just reality. Sometimes you really do need the best person you can find.

solidsnack9000 15d ago

It's not a matter of economics, corporate policy or belief in people -- it's a strategic matter. A country needs a secure and stable pipeline for personnel as much as for any other strategic asset. A country also needs to keep up and learn from other countries. That means working with and integrating technologies, ideas and, yes, personnel from other countries. It's a balance thing and Anduril has a hard job in trying to strike the balance, but they have to do it. The defense industry is not simply a number-goes-up operation.

wbl 15d ago
US higher education is that pipeline now, and it didn't exist in the 1930's and 1940's the way it does now.
wakawaka28 15d ago
It's funny how the loyalties of imported "talent" are not front and center in any discussion of how their presence is "strategically important." I think we are getting strategically shafted by lax immigration laws.

ecshafer 15d ago

I have seen H1Bs used for basic Java development, Desktop Support, CRM managemetn, Marketing, Project Managers, and all sorts of basic office work. The idea its used for the best and brightest is absurd. When you also count the massive fraud in H1B, people looking for kickbacks, racial preferences, lying on resumes (I once interviewed an H1B with 4 pages on their resume, couldn't answer a single question from what I pulled out of the resume, and got overruled by the manager on the hiring board). There is a massive amount of office work that can be done by a bright high schooler or community college grad, but gets shunted off to a body shop who mass applies H1B. Several years ago Disney fired their IT staff and replaced them with H1B, this was in the news. There was obviously not a talent shortage, and plenty of American citizens can pass the A+ or various microsoft sysadmin certs that "qualify" someone for IT work.

phainopepla2 15d ago
> I have seen H1Bs used for basic Java development, Desktop Support [...] Working in non-FAANG corporate America, these types of roles are the only thing thing I've ever seen H1B hires used for. They've run the gamut from incompetent to quite good, but none have ever been the "best and brightest". It saddens me that the left no longer seems to care about protecting American workers.
- mc32 15d ago
  You know, they used to. Bernie spoke against relocating refugees (from Serbia or something) back in the day due to the fact he had unemployed local Vermonters. They used to care. They had cared less since the second Reagan admin, but completely abandoned any pretense after GW's first term win. What I've seen is a local workforce (typically, then a mix of 1st gen Americans) being asked to train their replacements. Some replacements on Visas and some remote. But what gall to ask you to train your [cheaper] replacements.
  - wakawaka28 14d ago
    You're right, they used to care or at least said the right things. Then I guess they realized that they could get more voters by simply importing them lol... >What I've seen is a local workforce (typically, then a mix of 1st gen Americans) being asked to train their replacements. Some replacements on Visas and some remote. But what gall to ask you to train your [cheaper] replacements. This destroys their entire argument about the necessity of the imports, even if it is relatively rare. (Note that I don't think it's rare to be replaced by foreigners. I think it's rare to be forced or incentivized to train them, especially with knowledge that you will actually be replaced.) Recently I heard something crazy like 9 of 10 new jobs since the pandemic is held by foreign-born people, even as many US-born are unemployed. 20% of US-born men is unemployed. This is not a primary source but it should get you started if you're interested: https://www.numbersusa.org/blog/nine-out-of-ten-new-jobs-have-gone-to-immigrants-since-2020/ https://www.numbersusa.org/blog/nine-out-of-ten-new-jobs-hav...

redlewel 15d ago

H1B is not about finding geniuses, this is O-1 Visa program. The H1B exists to find laborers in areas where we have a shortage of qualified people in US. Given the fact that in many fields we have lots of American graduates that struggle to get jobs, H1B currently has no legitimate purpose in America. It should be abolished entirely.

tehlike 15d ago
There's a playbook someone on X published (and bragged about it). Borderline fraudulent imho. So even though O-1 is intended for extra ordinary abilities, it's far from one.
- jazzpush2 15d ago
  O-1 is about as far as you can get these days. Just search O-1 on x.com and see the type of people that have it - often designers, 'product' folks, etc. working for no-name YC startups.
  - tehlike 14d ago
    The no name yc startup is fine, but the qualifications / proof of extraordinary ability is just non existent.
andrewla 15d ago
They both have similar roles, but O-1 is an immigrant visa and H-1B is a non-immigrant visa (a temporary worker visa). Everything else is downstream of that.
- pandaman 14d ago
  Both are non-immigrant visas. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary... https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-spec...

breadwinner 15d ago

One of the issues is conflation of IT jobs and High Tech jobs. Those making laws don't understand the difference -- they are all "computer jobs" to them. IT does not require immigrant labor. Companies such as Infosys and Tata don't need to be operating in the US. There are plenty of US workers available to do the job. But High Tech is different. High Tech needs the best in the world, not the best in the US. The US leads the world in tech not because the best ideas were all American but because the best people in the world immigrated to the US. Stopping this will be ruinous to American prosperity. The seminal research paper that kicked off the AI revolution (titled "Attention is all you need") 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 undercut Americans? Far from it. These immigrants are the lifeblood of the tech industry, and their innovations create jobs.

wakawaka28 15d ago
I think everyone (or virtually everyone) is OK with actual world-leading researchers coming to the US. But what we don't want is the labor market flooded with foreign "talent". The system is designed to try to get the researchers and noteworthy people, but corrupt people have found ways around all of it. There are paper mills, degree mills, cheating rings, etc. Plus firms that exist solely to funnel foreigners into the US for a fee. There is always an economic argument to be made for importing the cheapest or allegedly "best" labor, but it's mostly about saving money even if it means destroying domestic workers. It sounds better when we're talking about a scientist instead of a construction worker or meat packer, but it's kind of the same problem. There are many cases of American workers being forced to train H1-B replacements, or being blatantly discriminated against for being, shall we say, obviously American. If foreign researchers are able to prove themselves abroad and contribute as you say, I assume they can continue doing that in most cases without coming to the US to take jobs. If immigrants are such a great resource, why are poor countries not trying harder to keep those people from leaving? Why doesn't China import a bunch of Indians for IT work, or vice versa?
- breadwinner 15d ago

petcat 15d ago

> An H-1B hire should not simply be marginally better than an American counterpart. They should provide such a leap forward in capabilities such that the rest of the company is elevated in their own knowledge and expertise. This is an important thing that was recently addressed by the new $100,000 fee to sponsor an H-1B visa. It is especially impacting Indian tech workers in the US [1] since the types of roles that InfoSys and other foreign tech consulting firms are staffing do not meet the bar of "leap forward in capabilities". A US company is welcome to sponsor (and pay for) a visa for a truly exceptional worker. But not just anyone because they're cheap and minimally-capable. [1] https://thefederal.com/category/news/h1b-visa-indian-tech-workers-return-india-us-jobs-245525 https://thefederal.com/category/news/h1b-visa-indian-tech-wo...

samtp 15d ago
Seems more likely to just lead to larger offices in India, reducing high earners here in America (even if only temporary) and reducing the amount of money that is recycled through American cities.
- dominotw 15d ago
  this seems like common retort. hire h1b or else.... we open a role on linkedin for a data engineer for about 6 hrs and we got 500+ applicants and vast majority were indeed qualifed on paper. I am baffled by employers who cant seem to find anyone in the country that doesnt need work authorization. Love to hear what types of roles and where this is happening.
  - nightpool 15d ago
    Have you interviewed any of these candidates yet? I doubt that you have 500+ real candidates. My experience in the past 12 months of hiring is that you'll have maybe 10 "qualified on paper" candidates, and 490 AI-generated profiles.
    - dominotw 15d ago

patwork 15d ago

The open secret of the H1B program is that the credentials are fake. The system whitewashes candidates to provide the illusion of these credentials, but they are in fact no more qualified than an American candidate.

utokyoberkeley 15d ago
[flagged]
formerlurker 14d ago
There is also no guarantee that the people you hire do not have criminal or psychological issues because these things are not checked or shared internationally. For example, a woman in my college got killed by a foreign PhD student because she rejected his romantic advances. I also find people can have high degrees of education on paper but hold beliefs that seem more aligned with people in the 50’s. I don’t want to work with people who think yelling and obeying the boss blindly is appropriate.

mlboss 15d ago

Few facts to add color to different point of views: - PG wants cheap labor so that we can get cheap/hard working employees for startups with a fear of deportation - Palmer cannot hire people on visas because they cannot easily clear security clearance that is required to work in Defense sector. Its better to align with current Government to get contracts.

mjcohen 15d ago

And then you have the Trump administration's war on competence.

ag1524 15d ago

I don't like that immigration is framed as a left-center vs right issue. Around 1900 the socialists were against immigration because it displaced local workers and capitalists used it to drive down wages. So, ironically, Paul Graham supports the right wing position and Luckey the left-center if you frame it that way! The most qualified for physical jobs are the healthiest. By allowing unlimited immigration, you literally let in the healthiest and most persistent to the detriment of less healthy locals. Eugenics? You can frame it that way, too. Being born in a desirable country has disadvantages now. People from all over the world buy property and drive up prices, people from all over the world compete for local jobs, take university places (almost free in the EU). That is locust capitalism and the distinction between the von Brauns and the regular H1Bs that the article makes is sensible.

jazzpush2 15d ago

I have multiple friends who studied CS and graduated in the last few years and couldn't find a job. These are people who grew up in the states, paid taxes here, came from (sometimes generations of) families who paid taxes here. I myself have pay $XXX,XXX in taxes a year. It's absolutely bullshit that H1B and O1 visas can come here and take routine CS jobs that US citizens are more-than-qualified for. The narrative of the need for these visas is pure corporate-shill speak.

cyberax 15d ago

Let me put it this way: the US school system sucks. It produces great drama artists, athletes, and marketing specialists but not STEM professionals. You can see it here: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37 - just 6% of US school graduates go to study engineering (there are almost no foreign-born students doing bachelors in the US). This has been the case since forever. So more than half of the STEM graduates of the _US_ universities are foreigners: https://www.ets.org/grad-school-journey/international-students-stem-programs.html https://www.ets.org/grad-school-journey/international-studen... And if anything, the adult daycare (aka "school") situation has been getting worse for quite a while.

sobellian 15d ago
The US is a big country so it's hard to generalize. But if you take the "default" US culture, it has been either ambivalent or hostile toward nerds for a long time. People who rightly point this out get shouted down as being anti-American (see Ramaswamy's infamous post). They shouldn't shoot the messenger. They should help their kids tinker with cool garage experiments.
- cyberax 14d ago
  It's not just the culture, it's the school system. Nerds are distrusted pretty much everywhere. But if you have a school system that rewards achievement in STEM disciplines, you get better outcomes in STEM disciplines (see: China, xUSSR countries, India, South Korea).

phendrenad2 15d ago

I see this debate as not really being about immigration, but as a facet of the eternal war between plutocrats and socialists. Plutocrats prey on socialist countries, exploiting their high standard of living and high social trust. Socialism more often than not arises when plutocrats have hollowed out a country and left it fallow, and interferes with the plutocrats second phase where they "brain drain" the now-desperate people and use them as shock troops in their next campaign. Plutocrats want to restrict immigration to the needs of business, while socialists want immigration to be as egalitarian as possible. As such, socialists and plutocrats are natural enemies. Socialist countries sometimes manage to shake off the plutocrats, and in fact America's "melting pot" idea was a well-timed inoculation against them.

xnx 15d ago

With AI rapidly exceeding the tech knowledge of even the most qualified workers, is the benefit of an H1B worker that significant? General communication and strategic skills might be stronger in domestic workers.

try-working 14d ago

There's no such thing as an innate most qualified person. Zuck was never the most qualified to be CEO of Meta. He is now, because of what he's done. At the same time there's an infinite number of jobs he is poorly qualified for. Strict qualification can only be measured in a extreme niche cases. You founded an area of research, so you're the most qualified to work on that at Google. You have a massive Linux project, then maybe Torvalds or his core maintainers are the only ones who fit. But outside of that, people become qualified because of what they do, and before they did it, they were unqualified. As an example, I'm sure there are many people at OAI and Ant who are today world experts at research and training and infra. But they became that by just doing the job. Take their same resume from 5 years ago and they may not even reach the interview if they applied for the same role. The what does qualified mean, how do you measure and define it? Countries need to develop their own talent and individuals need to develop themselves.