On Immigration, Engineers Simply Dont Trust VCs
In an essay posted on his website, Paul Graham, the co-founder and former head of YCombinator, loudly called for an increase in skilled immigration. Writing with an intensity that is unusual in his writing, Graham argued that The US has less than 5% of the worlds population. Which means if the qualities that make someone a great programmer are evenly distributed, 95% of great programmers are born outside the US.
His concern is that anti-immigration forces have thwarted reforms to our immigration system, risking Americas competitiveness in attracting the most brilliant engineers to Silicon Valley. The problem is particularly acute today, he notes, since startups face a severe talent crunch that could be ameliorated with a more open immigration policy. If we refuse to adapt, the US could be seriously fucked, Graham writes colorfully.
But Graham largely avoids what many tech workers think when hearing about immigration reform: we could be seriously fucked. Indeed, Grahams essay never once uses the words wage or income.
Even worse, his focus on exceptional programmers belies the real issue at the heart of immigration reform: it isnt about the top performing 1% of workers, which of course every country and policymaker in the world wants to attract. It is the broader effect that immigration has on wages for the other 99% that causes such controversy around these policies.
What is missing from the immigration debate in Silicon Valley is trust, and it certainly isnt the engineers that have abused it. We know that tech companies have worked really hard to keep wages from rising the past decade. Google, Apple, and a multitude of other large tech companies systematically worked together to stop workers from negotiating higher salaries by restricting recruitment practices and preventing workers from enjoying free movement of their labor.
Such tactics have made engineers far more cynical about the motives of tech companies, which is intensified by the incessant talk of talent shortages in the industry.
Graham, like hundreds of other immigration advocates before him in the tech industry, argues that there is a broad talent crunch in Silicon Valley, and immigration policy is one of the critical friction points stopping the expansion of high-flying startups. This widely-reported hiring challenge turned immigration into the marquee political issue for Silicon Valley and led to the creation of one of the most well-funded political action committees in the region, FWD.us.
Yet, we know that many of Americas best engineers are never even given the chance to work in our industry, left behind by the meritocracy. Women are massively underrepresented in engineering jobs in the region, as are people older than 39. Graham might argue that America only represents 5% of the engineers worldwide, but it seems we have already thrown away more than 75% of them at home.
That hasnt stopped fear of a labor squeeze from having a strong effect on Capitol Hill, where there remains broad support for easing immigration rules for knowledge workers. Changes demanded by Silicon Valley companies are generally supported on Capitol Hill, particularly in light of the other immigration challenges faced by legislators such as procedures on handling undocumented workers. As The Hill wrote in the last push for immigration reform, it is likely Congress will again want to use high skilled immigration as a sweetener in comprehensive immigration reform efforts to bolster the support of business minded moderates in both parties.
But for all of that popularity, funding, and support, high-tech immigration policy has completely stagnated, as it has for years. During a round of negotiations for immigration reform in 2007, high-tech issues got almost no final traction in Congress, despite that broad support. As reported at the time by the New York Times, E. John Krumholtz, director of federal affairs at Microsoft, said the bill was worse than the status quo, and the status quo is a disaster.
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On Immigration, Engineers Simply Dont Trust VCs