outsourcing is hardly something new.
Yet, I see some startups whining and about this on X and other places.
If you really want to say that you're "hiring the best" or you want to "hire the world class best talent" then you would hire the best american engineers or pay the fee for overseas talent.
No excuses.
I can't for the life of me understand why some startups say "we need skills" and "we only hire the best" then choose a way cheaper talent via H1B overseas rather than train or hire a an Ivy / Stanford recent CS grad.
Thats all.
Then there should be no complaints from startups and founders about paying the $100K H1B fee for overseas talent.
Looking at this a little more deeply, the biggest issue is American labor is getting underpriced. What's causing that? Well, for starters there's the cost of an American education. The employee is looking at that as an investment and they expect a good ROI.
The second is inflated lifestyle expectations. That's been a big problem in America since the 90s. People aren't just living beyond their means, they're living well beyond their means - and just like the billionaires, they want more.
The result is we have recent college graduates expecting nice six-figure salaries. It's easy to offshore that. The growing trend now is to offshore to South America so you don't have to deal with the time zone shifts. You always have to remember there's someone a wee bit hungrier than you who is willing to work a wee bit more for a bit less. That's the person your employer wants.
This is what happens when you treat people like commodities, and you worship the market and money as your lord and savior.
Just don't say that you're hiring the best or the top 0.01% then, we all know where these ones are, they are either at FAANG or at a wholly $10B+ well funded AI lab.
> "What - you expect them to admit they hire the mediocre?"
They don't have to, we know they are.
But now they might as well admit it since the ones that can't afford the fee are the ones crying about the H1B situation.
Also, FAANG do not hire the smartest people. They have the budget to hoover up as many potentials as possible in order to keep them away from their competitors. The smart ones quickly realize this and leave.
Too bad.
Is a great win for everyone except the US.
India has about 70 million college graduates, which is a lot, but only a bit more than half have the skills to be employable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/degree-vs...
We already have evidence that Indian consulting agencies, among the largest recipients of h1bs, are discriminating against American employees: https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/09/us_jury_cognizant_cas... https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/...
I can understand why maybe Japanese wouldn’t want to leave their homeland. But if these workers are the cream of the crop, the compensation in America should be such that we could hoover up top candidates from the former soviet union.
India has 1/8th of the planets population. China is another 1/8th.
Obviously, Americans don't need H1B visas, and you are going to see more visa's coming from developing countries.
India's common language is English, they can easily communicate and get hired by American companies because of this.
Considering this, should it be a surprise they are such a significant part of the H1B program?
It isn't that 70% of the smartest people, though, they also have a great education system, it's 70% of the people that companies can assimilate into their environments are coming from India.
Perhaps the system could be overhauled to have an India specific visa and not group everyone in together?
Also, as a Canadian, another large immigrant population in the US, most of us don't come into the states under H1Bs because TN (and possibly other Visa's) are quite a bit easier.
My impression is that India has some universities with high reputations.
The Philippines has universities ranked higher than some IIT: https://www.topuniversities.com/asia-university-rankings. Indonesia and Malaysia have ones ranked higher than any IIT. Of course Korea and China dominate the rankings for Asia. Latin America has many universities ranked in the range of the IITs as well.
But to put all that in perspective, Arizona State is ranked 173 in the QS rankings, above all but 2 Indian universities. The U.S. has an extremely deep talent pool.
One possible explanation: the hiring market is dead for low tier devs (and mid tier ones are probably feeling the heat too). This is not caused by H1B, since this drought is recently new but visas have been around for a very long time.
Still, people panic and look for someone to blame. "This decision looks like it reduces dev supply, so my skills will be more in demand? Sounds good, let's go!"
Also, Trump’s support disproportionately comes from white americans, who perform among the best in international assessments: https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/18bzkle/2022_pi.... They’re right between Korea and Japan.
That all said, America needs to bring up its test scores, https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/pisa-scor....
I worry the pipeline is being tailored to pick up people with Olympiad-heavy educations at the expense of recruiting our local talent and creativity. And the more people are recruited from one such pipeline, the more biased its interview process becomes towards that style. (Not to say there's no overlap.)
It's unfortunate that everything gets disregarded as simply just racist / neo Nazi, The powers that be do not want you to discuss.
What these CEOs are asking for, must be something else.
> You must be able to demonstrate extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics through sustained national or international acclaim.
> You must meet at least 3 of the 10 criteria* below, or provide evidence of a one-time achievement (i.e., Pulitzer, Oscar, Olympic Medal) as well as evidence showing that you will be continuing to work in the area of your expertise. No offer of employment or labor certification is required.
There is also a category for professors and researchers. In this category one must have an offer of employment. No labor certification is required.
[0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent...
If you don't believe me try to find an image of an actual EB-1/2/3 visa, I'll wait.
Source : Former F-1/H1B visa holder classified under EB-2, with over a decade of experience dealing with USCIS paperwork.
[0] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...
We're talking about EB-1/2/3 which are not visas.
O-1 is a real visa, but also really expensive and limited to niche conditions, also not what we're talking about here.
mensetmanusman•4mo ago
This fee is a great compromise between the various parties fighting over this.
Putting a dollar amount on a disagreement is vastly easier for negotiations than words that can be interpreted depending on the time of day and week.