Comment by phenkdo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phenkdo | Hacker News Reader

As someone who argues for the H1b program, I wish the US opts for a points-based system (a la the Canadian system) and make the (current lottery) H1b a 5/10 year temporary green-card based on points.

* Points for education level MS/PhD,

* Salary indexed to COL,

* Job location (Kansas earns higher points vs SF),

* some points for scholarly merit (patents, peer-reviewed publications) and so on...

This would address the some legitimate concerns of US workers, make the process transparent and orderly, but also keep the tech economy rolling. The current system is asinine and needs serious reform.

This is one of the greatest things the US has - immigrant entrepreneurs == entrepreneur^2 - and would be foolish to shut it down.

Interesting point from the paper:

> the average age for when immigrant founders got their social security number is close to 26 years old,which is a rough proxy for when these immigrants entered the United States. On the other hand, the average age at founding a VC-backed company is 49 years old, which indicates that the majority of founders, even in the latter part of the sample,likely immigrated to the United States before 2004

Careful with the Canadian system: it never actually checks for employability.

The degree doesn't have to be recognized for it to be counted in the score. That's how you end up with "Engineers" driving taxis that are incapable of passing the PE exam (they are free to enroll, but would have to re-take pretty much the whole degree to have a shot at passing it).

Isn't H1-B a program for foreign workers, not entrepreneurs? Everything you listed (education,salary,job location,etc) has to do with workers, not entrepreneurs.

Actually there's quit a bit of overlap, many H1bs go onto start companies, some apply for an h1b through their own startup. Either way the immigrant entrepreneur almost universally say they find the US just "liberating" (compared to say India).

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