Ah, that's good it doesn't apply to founders. On the other hand, it's still pretty disastrous if your startup does well and you need to hire people. Nearly all the key early hires at the companies I listed above also lacked master's degrees.

> "This is just silly."

It's worse than silly. It's a baked in design flaw that literally would have prevented the foreign successes the program is in theory trying to replicate. It is silly to heavily credentialize an industry focused on doing new things, but it's also destructive.

The US has some enormous hurdles related to immigration, but it also has a network. Once someone is looking at the world outside SV/SF, there are many other places in the world trying to attract startups. Some of them have both stronger tech scenes and less regressive (though I still wouldn't say visionary) immigration requirements.

Why would a founder pick someplace like France, instead of South Korea or Australia where they could have a path to citizenship and a much easier time hiring talent?