Comment by nitwit005
12 hours ago
I've always been curious if it matters as much as people claim, or if the funding will just go to someone else with a similar result. We'll get to see if this becomes the new normal.
12 hours ago
I've always been curious if it matters as much as people claim, or if the funding will just go to someone else with a similar result. We'll get to see if this becomes the new normal.
> if the funding will just go to someone else with a similar result
To Americans? They're being outcompeted for this funding despite having many significant advantages over the people they're competing with. I think it would be naive to expect people starting from a position of strength and getting outcompeted nonetheless to achieve "similar results" when given funding.
The reason people test ideas, is because our assumptions are often wrong. And really, our information is pretty terrible, as we lack any inside information.
Imagine you only learn the country that takes the gold metals at the Olympics, but you have no ability to learn about how the athletes actually performed. The USA rarely wins at some sport, so everyone assumes they're terrible at it.
But, of course, if they're winning sometimes, the performance is actually likely extremely close.
Labor protectionism is an idea that has been tested many, many times.
It's funny you should bring up the Olympics. Did you know some countries offer financial incentives and a pathway to citizenship for immigrant athletes who are able to compete at an elite level?
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"out competed" in this context means "not willing to work for less"
I was talking about founders, who are in direct competition with one another for VC funding.
But if you want to talk about employees, what you're saying isn't really true.
Sourcing, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and relocating immigrant workers is very expensive. For an immigrant to outcompete a citizen on cost they have to be significantly cheaper than the citizen - but if they're on an H1B you have to pay them the prevailing wage for their position! So there's a floor on just how much immigrant workers can undercut citizen workers. Immigration certainly puts downward pressure on wages across a whole industry, but looking at software in particular we see wages having risen consistently for decades now. You can look at what companies are paying their H1B software workers and see that it's typically a very generous wage by US standards.
But, weirdly, a majority of US CS graduates don't work in software. It doesn't make sense that they would be holding out for more money than immigrant workers to the point that they end up exiting the industry altogether and taking a less lucrative job. Not to me, at least.
I think what you're saying, if it's happening at all, is likely only happening at the bottom end of the market. Which kind of proves my point.
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