Yeah, it's worrisome to see immigrants or (especially) naturalized or native-born citizens with strong ties overseas leave the US to start companies. But not necessarily a bad thing.
If they are leaving because the US has become an unfriendly place to new businesses, especially in high tech, that's bad.
If they are leaving because opportunities overseas are exceptional, and it's easier to capitalize on those opportunities for people with strong cultural or linguistic ties to a particular region, that's not necessarily bad. Having grown up in SF, I see the tech boom as a mixed bag. It's of course phenomenal to have so much wealth here. But I've also seen a lot of displacement. It's hardly a crisis that we can't cram every single tech startup in to this small peninsula, and I don't think it's a bad thing that people might actually want to live somewhere else either, in the US (Austin, Seattle, Boulder...) or overseas (Seoul, Bangalore, Copenhagen...).
That said, I do think these sort of stories do underscore why it's so important for the US to have a steady and reliable stream of STEM graduates come up through our own educational system. It's great to be open to talent from the rest of the world, but becoming excessively reliant on it long-term seems like folly to me.
It seems to be a case of the latter. These entrepreneurs identified a gap in a foreign market and exploited it. It's mutually beneficial - benefits them because they are now a leader in their market, and it benefits us as there is now one less social-fucking-coupon website that we have to hear about.
If they are leaving because the US has become an unfriendly place to new businesses, especially in high tech, that's bad.
If they are leaving because opportunities overseas are exceptional, and it's easier to capitalize on those opportunities for people with strong cultural or linguistic ties to a particular region, that's not necessarily bad. Having grown up in SF, I see the tech boom as a mixed bag. It's of course phenomenal to have so much wealth here. But I've also seen a lot of displacement. It's hardly a crisis that we can't cram every single tech startup in to this small peninsula, and I don't think it's a bad thing that people might actually want to live somewhere else either, in the US (Austin, Seattle, Boulder...) or overseas (Seoul, Bangalore, Copenhagen...).
That said, I do think these sort of stories do underscore why it's so important for the US to have a steady and reliable stream of STEM graduates come up through our own educational system. It's great to be open to talent from the rest of the world, but becoming excessively reliant on it long-term seems like folly to me.