Let's Give Visas to Startup Founders (USA should welcome funded startup entrepreneurs)

Business Week ^ | 12/2/2009 | Vivek Wadhwa

[SeekAndFind]

Bring up the topic of economic stimulus and job creation, and you won't hear much about immigration. If the topic does arise, it's usually because somebody believes foreigners are taking U.S. jobs.

It's time to bring the immigration question squarely into the debate over jobs. A change to immigration policy could help create jobs and rev up economic growth. It's a change that wouldn't be hard to bring about. I'm talking about the establishment of a Startup Founders Visa program.

The program would make it easier for those with great ideas and the desire to start a company to live and work in the U.S. The idea is simple, yet powerful. By letting in company founders, the U.S. would bring in risk-takers who want to create jobs and potentially build the next Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO), or Microsoft (MSFT).

At the same time, a founder visa program could stem the tide of talented, tech-savvy foreigners who are leaving the U.S. to seek fortunes in their home countries, primarily China and India. Even foes of flexible immigration policies who rail against both skilled and unskilled immigrants may have a hard time finding fault with granting visas to startup founders.

This type of program has been championed by a long list of technology notables and entrepreneurship gurus, including venture capitalists Brad Feld, a managing director at Mobius Venture Capital, Paul Graham, a partner at early-stage venture firm Y Combinator, and technology startup experts Eric Ries and Dave McClure. This idea was originally conceived last year by Robert Litan, the Kaufmann Foundation's vice-president of research.

Here's how it would work. Suppose a talented engineer who is not a U.S. citizen has a great idea for a new type of search engine and wants to start a company.

[Neidermeyer]

If they are disallowed from importing worker bees on H1B visas I’m for it.

[AreaMan]

Ok, but you would have to start by repealing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

Then and only then should you think about doing this.

[grumpygresh]

I’m a US citizen with a small business. I think I would like to be a non citizen resident visa also. That way, I would not be subject to the health care individual mandate to purchase qualified health insurance. What a great time to be a US citizen with less rights than an illegal or legal alien.

[WKUHilltopper]

How an incentive plan for those who already are citizens and have paid taxes forever. In other words, how about taking care of your own people first.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

New immigrants already get lots of things like tax breaks when they start new businesses in this country.

That way they can hide all of the money they already have, get loans at lower rates than American citizens, and run all of their competition out of business without risking a cent of their own.

Great system we have here in America.

[earlJam]

I also own a business.

Why would our government fund potential businesses of non-Americans at the expense of tax paying Americans?

Give ME the tax credit!

[skeeter]

Good idea, but here's how to make it better. How about we reduce the numbers of takers immigrating here by 10 for each founder visa issued.

And as a condition of entry the founder visa holders agree to the most stringent workplace enforcement at their start ups to guard against their ever employing illegal aliens.

[Yossarian]

This American would GLADLY start up his own business, if the business environment were better (less taxes, less regulations, and more capital around because it wasn't being sucked up by the Goobermint).

I'm sick of native born Americans getting the shaft time after time. NO MORE!

[Vendome]

fine by me. If an H1B loses their job and wants to start another company, without going on the dole, then I would be open to letting them stay.

It would be conditional and they would have to hire American workers.

I have had some friends move back to India and China after their jobs were eliminated but, if they were going to create a new company, I’d let them stay.

[I Buried My Guns]

Most illegals around these parts have less than an 4th grade education, and don't even speak Spanish, but rather a strange indian language common in their mountainous homeland in central Mexico. They are considered the lowest social class in their home country.

But I digress. We don't need any more interlopers and invaders just to prop up our economy. Our culture and it's norms are being diluted more and more every day by the influx of non-western dregs.

If Helga Hottentot wants to immigrate from Finland and has a level of hotness, manners, and wealth that I deem on a par with the rest of mainstream America, then I approve. But all I see are fat Mexi- and Hondura-indians who drive drunk, rape, and murder yet act, erroneously, like they are my social equals.

[gubamyster]

ping

[detective]

These people are crazy. Businesses in the U.S. are suffering. Now they want to bring in foreigners to "compete" with current U.S. businesses. They will then bring in their relatives and fellow foreigners to take whatever jobs they create and force more Americans out of work. Another stupid idea from the MSM.

[FrankR]

Let me see if I got this straight...

We chase out all of our industries and businesses with exhorbitant taxation and punitive regulation, then, we let in a bunch of foreigners to set up businesses, that like Mexican restaurants usually hire only Mexicans, and we call that "stimulus"?

The only thing I see it stimulating is the foreign businessman and his cronies.

Well, OK...bring them in...after a while Americans won't have any money to spend with them anyway.

So long as they don't teach Taliban classes in the back room [uh, ya think?] or use the business as a front for subversive activites, then bring them in.

Summary: all this plan is, is another for the democrats to milk money out of people - and now that they've completely stifled and crippled the American small business, they're trying to lure in the foreigners...oh, but ONLY the FUNDED ones...the ones with money.

This administration is all about money and power, and the "redistribution" part is to quell enough people to serve as their bodyguards to keep them in office. The rest of us will have to pull a "Red Dawn" and camp out in the mountians for survival.

[IDRATHERNOT]

Total 2008 Federal Corporate Income taxes was $275B.

So we could have given every corporation nearly a 3 yr hiatus on corporate income taxes for the cost of the failed stimulus.

Somehow I feel that would have definitely STIMULATED job growth.

[org.whodat]

I'm talking about the establishment of a Startup Founders Visa program.

What an ingorant crock of sh**.

[org.whodat]

I'm talking about the establishment of a Startup Founders Visa program.

What an ignorant crock of sh**.

[JerseyHighlander]

Non-resident business owners are also mandated to cover the new ObamaCare insurance for themselves and employees and optionally for dependents.

Thank gawd the Democrats threw us native born suckers that bone at least.

[discostu]

Who the heck wants to start a business in America now? We’ve got a government right now that wants to punish success, punish companies that take care of their own employees by self-insuring, punish employees of successful companies that give bonuses, and punish companies that want to share the wealth with the general populace and go public. Wanting to start a business in America today is a clear sign of insanity, and we shouldn’t give visas to nutters.

[Gay State Conservative]

Recently I investigated the possibility of applying for permanent residency status in Australia (permission to settle in and work in the country).They have a points system which assigns a point value to various facts...age,education,occupation,etc.I discovered that I didn't qualify because of my age (they assign a lot of points for being young and I'm *anything* but young) and because I don't have a skill that they need (doctors,nurses,engineers,etc).

Theirs is a reasonable system,IMO.They take only the people who can contribute the most...for the longest period of time...before they become a "burden" on the system (old...illness prone..."high maintenance").

We should do the same.*ONLY* those who can contribute something that we don't have enough of can get in.