The American Worker vs. the Most Qualified

skmurphy

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-...

alephnerd

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-en... [1] - https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

davesque

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.

valicord

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.

GlibMonkeyDeath

"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...

YesBox

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.

sobellian

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

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.

ecshafer

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.

redlewel

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.

breadwinner

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.

petcat

> 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-wo...

mlboss

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.

patwork

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.

mjcohen

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

ag1524

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

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

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 - 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-studen... And if anything, the adult daycare (aka "school") situation has been getting worse for quite a while.

phendrenad2

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

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.