> I wonder how many Indian or Chinese founders are actually immigrants from relatively well todo families that could afford to send someone half way across the world.
From personal experience, I can say that it's not that expensive to send someone "half way across the world" (I grew up in Romania, but currently live in California). What is hard is immigration/getting a visa, but you can't really fix that with more money (unless you're going for the investor visa, which very few do).
Also, it's really easy to apply for BigCo (Google, Apple, Facebook) jobs in the Bay Area from outside the US (you get phone interviews at first, the get flown over for on-site interviews on the company's dime). It's really not money that's stopping people from getting "in".
From personal experience, I can say that it's not that expensive to send someone "half way across the world" (I grew up in Romania, but currently live in California). What is hard is immigration/getting a visa, but you can't really fix that with more money (unless you're going for the investor visa, which very few do).
Also, it's really easy to apply for BigCo (Google, Apple, Facebook) jobs in the Bay Area from outside the US (you get phone interviews at first, the get flown over for on-site interviews on the company's dime). It's really not money that's stopping people from getting "in".