6 ms·

@2gov - Visas for startup founders movement

91 points by emontero1 17y ago

ilkhd2 17y ago
Be ready for influx of "startup founders", that would bring to the country taxi cab drivers, gardeners, all kind of "engineers" from India, China, Mexico, North Africa and so on.. Did you forget that very recent scandal with Satyam... They did what I just described...
- davemc500hats 17y ago
  not sure i understand your concern? the proposal we're working on is a modification to the EB-5 Visa, which currently requires a $1M investment (or a $500K investment in economically targeted area). even with a lower capital rqmt of say $100K-$250K, i don't think many people would be willing to put up that kind of cash for a taxi driver. on the other hand, it might be useful to make sure the source(s) of capital are from accredited and/or institutional investors, in order to prevent abuse.
  - ilkhd2 17y ago
    Ok but I read that founder should own only 10% of 250K which means 25K - 1 year of illegal work on gas station in NJ.
    - davemc500hats 17y ago
      um, huh? what are you talking about? please cite a link or reference.
      - ilkhd2 17y ago
        http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/09/the-founders-visa-movement.html?utm_campaign=foundrygroup&utm_medium=fndry.gr-copypaste&utm_source=&utm_content=site-basic http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/09/the-founders-visa-mo... look for "10%" in the text
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    It saddens me to see so much effort put into this kind of proposal. I favor loosened immigration conditions but this is a poorly thought-out scheme that seeks to create private initiative via government intervention. It doesn't just threaten to pollute the 'immigration space' with folks trying to seem like 'founders', it also pollutes the start-up space with these folks. If someone is 'creating jobs' with the goal of securing a VISA, they could put out ads (which real job seekers will try to answer), then hire only their friends, get the wages paid kicked mostly back to them and have a VISA pretty cheaply since they would get back a good proportion of their money. Sure, you could have regulators looking for people who did stuff like this but it would get clunky and I'm sure folks could think of umpteen other schemes to get around this. I'm not a Austrian or free-market nut but I think the Austrian arguments are most plausible when governments try to micro-manage enterprises. It would simpler to elimenate h1b's, skip the 'founders' and give N VISAs to individuals with documented skills and M to individuals who just pay a million dollars directly. That would bring skilled workers and investors here without a lot of falderal. If you wanted to make sure they were never unemployed, make them put up a bond. And Taxi drivers can make up to $100K/year if they are committed (a lot of them work literally 24 hours/day). A beach-head in the States is worth a lot in many parts of the world since once you arrive you can bring your entire family. $100K for ten people to immigrate here is a good deal. It's not something I'm even opposed to as such - my father and ex-wife were both immigrants. In fact, the main thing I oppose is the way present system creates distortions which helps neither the economy nor the immigrants.
    - miloshh 17y ago
      As pointed out by gruseom below, if somebody wants to game the system, they will come on a tourist visa and simply not leave. I don't think these convoluted scenarios of possible abuse are realistic at all. Furthermore, if the founder's visa law is any good, it will not require the founders to create jobs. It will simply assume that from 2500 startups a year, many will create a lot of jobs.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        Which is a faulty argument, because you flat-out can't work in the US on a tourist visa.
  - jhancock 17y ago
    Comments from joe_the_user and sachinag do a good job of summarizing some issues previously discussed on HN. I do believe that affordable health care attached to employers is a huge problem for enjoying a larger pool of U.S. entrepreneurs of every variety. Fixing this, which is an issue on the table with current Health Care reform, should bring far more new entrepreneurs than any new visa program would. Since the Health Care legislation is currently in process, why not write your congressman about this instead? This current founders visa proposal sidesteps fixing what's already abusive with H1-Bs. Skilled immigrants deserve a better process than they current have. It would seem to do more good to fix this than inventing some new category and ignoring the existing problems. Another problem is this agenda may not get a lot of love from U.S. entrepreneurs or would-be ones as there is a subtext to the founders visa agenda which says 1 - there are not enough good entrepreneurs in the U.S., which is very insulting; I've never seen any credible evidence to support this and 2 - VCs get to be "accredited" providing various leverage problems as discussed. Last, but not least, how many of these visas do you expect to create each year and at what cost to the government? Just to issue the first visa could have a fixed cost of hundreds of millions. Have you ever worked in government or anything related to INS? The rules and documentation and training required for this program would be costly. Do the investors plan to give the gov shares in these startups to make up for these cost? You can say that the reward will be job creation. Maybe, but I have seen interesting numbers on this.
ilkhd2 17y ago
Citing Paul: By definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't work for existing companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact they'd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies they started would hire more employees as they grew. ----- Of course they will not be hired by other companies...Legally...But USA is not the country where illegal employment is punished. Every time when you open access to your (rich) country to poorer people think about how the system can be abused.
- gruseom 17y ago
  Of course they will not be hired by other companies...Legally...But USA is not the country where illegal employment is punished People who choose to work illegally do so today by arriving for free on a tourist visa. Why would anyone put up capital and start a company in order to do it?
  - miloshh 17y ago
    It's sad how the founders visa isn't even close to reality yet, and already has vocal opponents bringing up bogus reasons why it's a bad thing. How long will it take until somebody complains about "foreigners taking away startup opportunities from Americans"?
    - ilkhd2 17y ago
      I do not see anything bogus in my reasons. There a lo mor important problems to be solved for making the market for software/internet startups better place. Namely - fixing pharmaceutical industry which is main reason why such an evil corporation like USPTO exists, which inflicts problems on software/internet industry by means of issuing bogus patents for buttons on webpages so on. I kno many American people who suffered a loot from patent lawsuits. Heck, even Reaearch on Motion has been bitten by bogus patent.
      - maxwin 17y ago
        this is a logical fallacy. Other more important issues don't make this issue less important. This is a hackers website not a health care/doctors website.
johnnybgoode 17y ago
This appears to have started with PG's Founder Visa essay. Be sure to read the original HN thread about that essay: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 At the time, I thought PG's idea was so flawed that I nearly registered just to point out why. Fortunately, bokonist did a great job of explaining what was wrong with the idea in that thread.
- netsp 17y ago
  Thanks for pointing to that thread. Bokonist makes a strong case against accreditation bodies in general, barriers to entry and the associated slippery slope. While I am sympathetic to that idea, we have to remember that the Founder Visa is a type of liberalisation, not a type of barrier. The solution mightn't be perfect, but it could be better then no founder immigration. While accreditation is possibly bad in general, it may be worth it if it pokes a hole in the immigration barrier. However, I think that there is a strong case against startup visas specifically. I think you would have to be willing to live with quite serious market distortions if you are prepared to support something like this. I made this argument on a previous thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823006 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823006
  - socratees 17y ago
    So if a VC firm overseas funds a startup, who gets the visa? Do you think the VC's overseas will be generous enough to let the founder get a US visa while they remain at their home country?
    - netsp 17y ago
      If a company is funded overseas, they probably want to stay where they are and the investor probably agrees. A VC fund can probably pick up and move to the States if they wanted to anyway.
sachinag 17y ago
There are a bunch of issues with the proposal, but hey: #Let's say someone comes over, starts a company with $500K and it fails. Then what? Legally, they would have to leave at that point, right? If not, why not? Brad says no, they just have to found another company. That makes me squeamish; while they may be working for themselves, it's not that different than bonding to a trade. #How many founders can you bring over for one company? What's going to stop them from setting up a consulting shop instead of a product company? We've seen that consulting jobs are very clearly 1-to-1 displacement of American citizens. #There are a lot of issues with the verification of "bona fide founder" status. I get that VCs are OK with being gatekeepers (yeah, I plead guilty for my one year on the dark side), but it's really distasteful to hand over any part of immigration to non-government officials. More here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 #The pro arguments now are based on anecdotes, not data. There is no data on how many jobs we're "losing out on" by not having a more founder-friendly immigration system. #Lastly, there's a solution that works right now: find an American co-founder. It's not pretty, as you have a distributed company in the early days, but it works. I acknowledge the intelligence of the tactical decision to give up on H1-Bs and go after changes to the EB-5, but America would be a better place if we actually reformed the H1-B process. I do wish Brad, Eric, Dave, etc. would tackle the H1-B elephant in the room publicly. We shouldn't be trying to steal startups from other countries; we should be trying to cultivate an environment where everyone here legally - citizens and immigrants on their path to citizenship - can start one and have it thrive. Also, and everyone's heard me on this before - this group would do a lot more for startups if they channeled this energy into healthcare reform. Job lock-in is real and affects many, many more potential startup founders than immigration policy. VCs/investors from outside SF/NY (cough Brad Feld cough Josh Kopelman cough) would especially be credible, useful voices on a matter that's actually front and center right now.
- ilkhd2 17y ago
  "Job lock-in is real and affects many, many more potential startup founders than immigration policy. VCs/investors from outside SF/NY (cough Brad Feld cough Josh Kopelman cough) would especially be credible, useful voices on a matter that's actually front and center right now." Totally agree.
BerislavLopac 17y ago
Personally I would like to get an US visa, startup or not -- but this is plain ridiculous. As I understand it, the VCs are running out of good projects to invest in in the States, so they want the hill to come to Mohammad, i.e. the founders to get to the US. US is a lovely country I'd very much like to visit, but why don't the VCs simply pack up themselves and go to other countries and fund startups there? I understand that they would find it difficult to follow their investments in foreign environments, but there is a number of solutions they could combine, from having trusted local experts at location, to combining western legal entities with the local technical expertise (Seedcamp's Zemanta, from Slovenia, is a good example).
fryduck 17y ago
Frankly, a lot of us aren't even funded by VCs anymore. Boot strapping and staying frugal has helped. I don't really have it in me to go grovelling to VCs anymore. DONE. So whats in it for the individual startup chaps? Or will VCs continue to dominate everything?
ardit33 17y ago
I see over and over naysayers of this visa claiming all kinds of fraud that can happen, and all kind of reasons why it is a bad idea, without really addressing on how to make it fair. To the all naysayers of the visa, there are easier system's to game the system. Marriage. That's right. I have a friend that did it (with way less than 20k). Sure there are some steps to prevent fraud (even interviews), but that doesn't stop most people getting married just for citizenship, except the most obvious cases. According to the 'nay-sayers' logic, we should stop giving green card/citizenship through marriage, b/c maybe 15% of them are fraud. If you really really want to live in the US, and have about 50k, you will find somebody that will marry (my friend found it for a lot less money). No need to go through this Visa problem. It is kinda wierd, but it is much easier for a less educated person to game the system, then for somebody that is more educated (most under the table jobs,are blue collar ones). In any way, saying we shouldn't let the Founder Visa b/c there might be potential fraud, is pure FUD. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt, just for your own little short sighted self. If you enjoy an america without immigrants, a go live in West Virginia, or Alabama.

91 points by emontero1 17y ago

Be ready for influx of "startup founders", that would bring to the country taxi cab drivers, gardeners, all kind of "engineers" from India, China, Mexico, North Africa and so on.. Did you forget that very recent scandal with Satyam... They did what I just described...

davemc500hats 17y ago
not sure i understand your concern? the proposal we're working on is a modification to the EB-5 Visa, which currently requires a $1M investment (or a $500K investment in economically targeted area). even with a lower capital rqmt of say $100K-$250K, i don't think many people would be willing to put up that kind of cash for a taxi driver. on the other hand, it might be useful to make sure the source(s) of capital are from accredited and/or institutional investors, in order to prevent abuse.
- ilkhd2 17y ago
  Ok but I read that founder should own only 10% of 250K which means 25K - 1 year of illegal work on gas station in NJ.
  - davemc500hats 17y ago
    um, huh? what are you talking about? please cite a link or reference.
    - ilkhd2 17y ago
      http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/09/the-founders-visa-movement.html?utm_campaign=foundrygroup&utm_medium=fndry.gr-copypaste&utm_source=&utm_content=site-basic http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/09/the-founders-visa-mo... look for "10%" in the text
- joe_the_user 17y ago
  It saddens me to see so much effort put into this kind of proposal. I favor loosened immigration conditions but this is a poorly thought-out scheme that seeks to create private initiative via government intervention. It doesn't just threaten to pollute the 'immigration space' with folks trying to seem like 'founders', it also pollutes the start-up space with these folks. If someone is 'creating jobs' with the goal of securing a VISA, they could put out ads (which real job seekers will try to answer), then hire only their friends, get the wages paid kicked mostly back to them and have a VISA pretty cheaply since they would get back a good proportion of their money. Sure, you could have regulators looking for people who did stuff like this but it would get clunky and I'm sure folks could think of umpteen other schemes to get around this. I'm not a Austrian or free-market nut but I think the Austrian arguments are most plausible when governments try to micro-manage enterprises. It would simpler to elimenate h1b's, skip the 'founders' and give N VISAs to individuals with documented skills and M to individuals who just pay a million dollars directly. That would bring skilled workers and investors here without a lot of falderal. If you wanted to make sure they were never unemployed, make them put up a bond. And Taxi drivers can make up to $100K/year if they are committed (a lot of them work literally 24 hours/day). A beach-head in the States is worth a lot in many parts of the world since once you arrive you can bring your entire family. $100K for ten people to immigrate here is a good deal. It's not something I'm even opposed to as such - my father and ex-wife were both immigrants. In fact, the main thing I oppose is the way present system creates distortions which helps neither the economy nor the immigrants.
  - miloshh 17y ago
    As pointed out by gruseom below, if somebody wants to game the system, they will come on a tourist visa and simply not leave. I don't think these convoluted scenarios of possible abuse are realistic at all. Furthermore, if the founder's visa law is any good, it will not require the founders to create jobs. It will simply assume that from 2500 startups a year, many will create a lot of jobs.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Which is a faulty argument, because you flat-out can't work in the US on a tourist visa.
- jhancock 17y ago
  Comments from joe_the_user and sachinag do a good job of summarizing some issues previously discussed on HN. I do believe that affordable health care attached to employers is a huge problem for enjoying a larger pool of U.S. entrepreneurs of every variety. Fixing this, which is an issue on the table with current Health Care reform, should bring far more new entrepreneurs than any new visa program would. Since the Health Care legislation is currently in process, why not write your congressman about this instead? This current founders visa proposal sidesteps fixing what's already abusive with H1-Bs. Skilled immigrants deserve a better process than they current have. It would seem to do more good to fix this than inventing some new category and ignoring the existing problems. Another problem is this agenda may not get a lot of love from U.S. entrepreneurs or would-be ones as there is a subtext to the founders visa agenda which says 1 - there are not enough good entrepreneurs in the U.S., which is very insulting; I've never seen any credible evidence to support this and 2 - VCs get to be "accredited" providing various leverage problems as discussed. Last, but not least, how many of these visas do you expect to create each year and at what cost to the government? Just to issue the first visa could have a fixed cost of hundreds of millions. Have you ever worked in government or anything related to INS? The rules and documentation and training required for this program would be costly. Do the investors plan to give the gov shares in these startups to make up for these cost? You can say that the reward will be job creation. Maybe, but I have seen interesting numbers on this.

ilkhd2 17y ago

Citing Paul: By definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't work for existing companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact they'd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies they started would hire more employees as they grew. ----- Of course they will not be hired by other companies...Legally...But USA is not the country where illegal employment is punished. Every time when you open access to your (rich) country to poorer people think about how the system can be abused.

gruseom 17y ago
Of course they will not be hired by other companies...Legally...But USA is not the country where illegal employment is punished People who choose to work illegally do so today by arriving for free on a tourist visa. Why would anyone put up capital and start a company in order to do it?
- miloshh 17y ago
  It's sad how the founders visa isn't even close to reality yet, and already has vocal opponents bringing up bogus reasons why it's a bad thing. How long will it take until somebody complains about "foreigners taking away startup opportunities from Americans"?
  - ilkhd2 17y ago
    I do not see anything bogus in my reasons. There a lo mor important problems to be solved for making the market for software/internet startups better place. Namely - fixing pharmaceutical industry which is main reason why such an evil corporation like USPTO exists, which inflicts problems on software/internet industry by means of issuing bogus patents for buttons on webpages so on. I kno many American people who suffered a loot from patent lawsuits. Heck, even Reaearch on Motion has been bitten by bogus patent.
    - maxwin 17y ago
      this is a logical fallacy. Other more important issues don't make this issue less important. This is a hackers website not a health care/doctors website.

johnnybgoode 17y ago

This appears to have started with PG's Founder Visa essay. Be sure to read the original HN thread about that essay: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 At the time, I thought PG's idea was so flawed that I nearly registered just to point out why. Fortunately, bokonist did a great job of explaining what was wrong with the idea in that thread.

netsp 17y ago
Thanks for pointing to that thread. Bokonist makes a strong case against accreditation bodies in general, barriers to entry and the associated slippery slope. While I am sympathetic to that idea, we have to remember that the Founder Visa is a type of liberalisation, not a type of barrier. The solution mightn't be perfect, but it could be better then no founder immigration. While accreditation is possibly bad in general, it may be worth it if it pokes a hole in the immigration barrier. However, I think that there is a strong case against startup visas specifically. I think you would have to be willing to live with quite serious market distortions if you are prepared to support something like this. I made this argument on a previous thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823006 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=823006
- socratees 17y ago
  So if a VC firm overseas funds a startup, who gets the visa? Do you think the VC's overseas will be generous enough to let the founder get a US visa while they remain at their home country?
  - netsp 17y ago
    If a company is funded overseas, they probably want to stay where they are and the investor probably agrees. A VC fund can probably pick up and move to the States if they wanted to anyway.

sachinag 17y ago

There are a bunch of issues with the proposal, but hey: #Let's say someone comes over, starts a company with $500K and it fails. Then what? Legally, they would have to leave at that point, right? If not, why not? Brad says no, they just have to found another company. That makes me squeamish; while they may be working for themselves, it's not that different than bonding to a trade. #How many founders can you bring over for one company? What's going to stop them from setting up a consulting shop instead of a product company? We've seen that consulting jobs are very clearly 1-to-1 displacement of American citizens. #There are a lot of issues with the verification of "bona fide founder" status. I get that VCs are OK with being gatekeepers (yeah, I plead guilty for my one year on the dark side), but it's really distasteful to hand over any part of immigration to non-government officials. More here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908 #The pro arguments now are based on anecdotes, not data. There is no data on how many jobs we're "losing out on" by not having a more founder-friendly immigration system. #Lastly, there's a solution that works right now: find an American co-founder. It's not pretty, as you have a distributed company in the early days, but it works. I acknowledge the intelligence of the tactical decision to give up on H1-Bs and go after changes to the EB-5, but America would be a better place if we actually reformed the H1-B process. I do wish Brad, Eric, Dave, etc. would tackle the H1-B elephant in the room publicly. We shouldn't be trying to steal startups from other countries; we should be trying to cultivate an environment where everyone here legally - citizens and immigrants on their path to citizenship - can start one and have it thrive. Also, and everyone's heard me on this before - this group would do a lot more for startups if they channeled this energy into healthcare reform. Job lock-in is real and affects many, many more potential startup founders than immigration policy. VCs/investors from outside SF/NY (cough Brad Feld cough Josh Kopelman cough) would especially be credible, useful voices on a matter that's actually front and center right now.

ilkhd2 17y ago
"Job lock-in is real and affects many, many more potential startup founders than immigration policy. VCs/investors from outside SF/NY (cough Brad Feld cough Josh Kopelman cough) would especially be credible, useful voices on a matter that's actually front and center right now." Totally agree.

BerislavLopac 17y ago

Personally I would like to get an US visa, startup or not -- but this is plain ridiculous. As I understand it, the VCs are running out of good projects to invest in in the States, so they want the hill to come to Mohammad, i.e. the founders to get to the US. US is a lovely country I'd very much like to visit, but why don't the VCs simply pack up themselves and go to other countries and fund startups there? I understand that they would find it difficult to follow their investments in foreign environments, but there is a number of solutions they could combine, from having trusted local experts at location, to combining western legal entities with the local technical expertise (Seedcamp's Zemanta, from Slovenia, is a good example).

fryduck 17y ago

Frankly, a lot of us aren't even funded by VCs anymore. Boot strapping and staying frugal has helped. I don't really have it in me to go grovelling to VCs anymore. DONE. So whats in it for the individual startup chaps? Or will VCs continue to dominate everything?

ardit33 17y ago

I see over and over naysayers of this visa claiming all kinds of fraud that can happen, and all kind of reasons why it is a bad idea, without really addressing on how to make it fair. To the all naysayers of the visa, there are easier system's to game the system. Marriage. That's right. I have a friend that did it (with way less than 20k). Sure there are some steps to prevent fraud (even interviews), but that doesn't stop most people getting married just for citizenship, except the most obvious cases. According to the 'nay-sayers' logic, we should stop giving green card/citizenship through marriage, b/c maybe 15% of them are fraud. If you really really want to live in the US, and have about 50k, you will find somebody that will marry (my friend found it for a lot less money). No need to go through this Visa problem. It is kinda wierd, but it is much easier for a less educated person to game the system, then for somebody that is more educated (most under the table jobs,are blue collar ones). In any way, saying we shouldn't let the Founder Visa b/c there might be potential fraud, is pure FUD. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt, just for your own little short sighted self. If you enjoy an america without immigrants, a go live in West Virginia, or Alabama.