This seems a bit of a generalization, or dare I say, a romanticization. It's supposing you know the motivations driving a group of people whose only shared characteristic is that they weren't born in the United States. In many ways, it's as much a generalization as the "people that rant against immigrants in general".
In my personal experience, designers tend to wear more thick plastic "hipster" style glasses than the general public. Therefore, hipster glasses make you a better designer.
I'd submit that it's not about "more to lose", but rather, it's a move of safety. You see a lot of the same businesses operated by the same types of people. Why? Is that group of people in a caste system that requires them to operate that type of business? No. There's safety in numbers, and birds of a feather flock together (and may work to protect the hatchlings as well).
Perhaps VCs have found that there's a certain profile they like for a company. If I was founding a company and thought having an immigrant co-founder could make the funding process easier, you'd better believe it would affect my choices of co-founders. Are there also tax incentives? I know in Oklahoma, there's a ton of businesses "owned" by Native Americans, even though the company is usually run by someone else. Keep in mind that you only need one immigrant founder to make it an immigrant founded company. (What would the % be like if 100% were the requirement?) Is Barack Obama considered black or white?
If you look at the profiles of these companies, I think you'll find a lot of the good ole business practices in place. (tongue planted in cheek here) Immigrants? yes. American minorities? less so. Women? less so.
I'd love to see a breakdown of bootstrapped companies as well. I suspect it's a different story.
I think it is much simpler than that. Over and beyond not having a safety net and not having a high aversion to risk once you've immigrated to somewhere assuming you didn't do that to go to work for some specific company you're behind the rest of the pack when it comes to applying for jobs. So immigrants have a strong incentive to found a company, they won't have a gap in their CV if they do, they already have the largest gap possible. Nothing to lose is an excellent position to be in when you're confronted with the choice to start a company or not.
This isn't the first time I've read a sweeping generalization from yourself based on "personal experience". I have no doubt you have a lot of personal experiences and don't disagree with your viewpoint (in fact my personal experience dictates the same) however, it is still a generalization. You're talking about a cohort that you (and I for that matter) have no formal analysis to back up.
I'm American and I've immigrated to the UK. I know hundreds of Americans who have done the same. I don't know a single one of them who "has nothing to lose". So I could also conclude the exact opposite conjecture.
The reason I mention all of this is not because I think you or I are right or wrong, but because I think is disingenuous to provide arguments (from either side) without any formal analysis.
Anyway, let's get back on topic. So if it 33% of immigrants are co-founding big businesses in the US that are helping the US economy, then surely we should be letting in more right? X * Z% = Y, increase Z% and we get more Y, right? There's a couple things at work here:
- The fact that 33% are actually making it into the US and creating businesses perhaps speaks the nature of the people who "stop at nothing" to live their dreams. The US immigration system is painful, but perhaps it's this painful barrier that filters out all of the immigrants who don't create jobs for the US and does identify the people that do.
- What is the ideal % for founders? Is it 90%? Is it 50%? If it becomes 90% then why shouldn't it become 100%? Perhaps we could create an analogy to a silly american football argument and say "85% of all NFL Pro-bowl players are African-Americans. Let's get more African-Americans playing football!"
- I have yet to see a reasonable argument for a system that correctly attributes the probability of creating a successful business by an immigrant to the US. For one, it is not a specific country. The article clearly dictates this.
- I believe the massive proponents for immigration reform stems mainly from high-net worth individuals that are complaining because they want to bring highly talented people from abroad to the US so that they can personally benefit from it. Equally, potential immigrants are complaining because they don't have an opportunity to move to the US. If this is such a big problem, why not find a country that supports both? Surely there is an island in the Caribbean that could cater to this?
- I think you are right in that the mentality of the successful business creator is someone with "nothing to lose". This is how America became so prosperous and heck it was built by immigrants 200 odd years ago. But surely there are people in the US with "nothing to lose"? I think it would be beneficial to understand more about the character traits of these massively successful business founders, rather than simply the country they come from. Otherwise, we're using the same exact basis the the opposition is using - that this cohort's characteristic is simply that it was born in a country outside of the US.
- I've emigrated myself (to Canada, founded a company there)
- I know quite a few people who have done the same thing
- I'm generalizing across my personal experience because I am me. Feel free to do the same thing, this is a comment on a forum, not a peer-reviewed study on the subject matter. Funny enough, your experience seems to be the same, which strengthens my 'not being surprised' by this.
- People in the US with 'nothing to lose' don't typically decide to have nothing to lose. An immigrant is deciding to go onto a risky path in life fairly consciously which would explain the difference in outcome.
I, nor the person before you, weren't questioning your ability to empathize with the original story. I'm not sure why you chose to highlight facts that back that up.
Feel free to do the same thing
I don't want to. You have influence on this site and it's very likely someone will read your original comment and take your conclusion to be true because "someone influential said it on the internet". Your generalization is consistent with mine, but the conclusion is unfounded.
An immigrant is deciding to go onto a risky path in life fairly consciously which would explain the difference in outcome.
But immigration in of itself, does not constitute a risky path. Hence my example of Americans in the UK.
I agree with you that an American moving to the UK is not taking a risky path. But that is not the general case for immigration, it is rather an outlier.
> perhaps it's this painful barrier that filters out all of the immigrants who don't create jobs for the US and does identify the people that do.
I don't buy it. If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no? The US has fewer painful barriers to creating companies, and a lot of good infrastructure, and so a lot of the world's largest, biggest, most important companies are there. Not all of them, of course, but I don't think that barriers really do much good.
> correctly attributes the probability of creating a successful business by an immigrant to the US.
Predicting the future is often difficult.
Don't have time for the other points, I have some barbecue to attend to:-)
> I don't buy it. If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no?
You wouldn't expect that, because there are high barriers to starting successful companies there, and few that would want to go there to start companies.
What he is suggesting is that, GIVEN that there's a lot of people that want to move to the US to work or start businesses, it is possible that the barrier to immigrate legally serves as a filter so that those who make it through are people who are more likely than the average of those who would like to immigrate to the US to be successful.
If that is the case, then by increasing immigration, you might not increase the amount of successful businesses nearly as much as you might hope.
How much to hope for is not really all that important, the fact is that with 0 immigration there are no immigrant founders and with lots of immigration there will be more of them.
Therefore increasing the number of immigrants will lead to a higher number of immigrant founders. Barriers are silly and counterproductive.
If 'painful barriers' were a good thing, you'd see the world's best capitalists in North Korea and Cuba, no?
There's a difference between impossible barriers and painful barriers. Just because a wall exist doesn't mean you can't climb over it. My point is a psychological one - that perhaps it's the personality and characteristic of a person who is willing to circumvent government barriers that makes them so appealing to start a successful business. Honestly, I don't know, it's just food for thought.
Predicting the future is often difficult.
So who are we to judge who should be allowed in not allowed in?
Don't have time for the other points, I have some barbecue to attend to:-)
Hehe, no worries. I appreciate the fruitful discussion.
I think that immigrants face more barriers. Some of these startup folks, I think, probably faced some barriers into entering the elite societies in the US. For example, if you attend college at any of the top 20 colleges in the country, you're going to meet the elite, but an upper-middle class person, especially an immigrant, is going to face difficulties marrying into, or being accepted by these elites.
However, to use the language of the typical undocumented immigrant, of having "nothing to lose", doesn't accurately convey the truth. It's just going to confuse things. There are poor immigrants who start businesses, but by and large, they aren't venture backed startups; more like mom-and-pop stores, food trucks, or swap-meet businesses.
