Posted by: Cowboys May 20, 2009
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How about this instead.
The Founder Visa
Paul Graham - April 2009
I usually avoid
politics, but since we now seem to have an administration that's open
to suggestions, I'm going to risk making one. The single biggest thing
the government could do to increase the number of startups in this
country is a policy that would cost nothing: establish a new class of
visa forstartup founders.
The
biggest constraint on the number of new startups that get created in
the US is not tax policy or employment law or even Sarbanes-Oxley. It's
that we won't let the people who want to start them into the country.
Letting
just 10,000 startup founders into the country each year could have a
visible effect on the economy. If we assume 4 people per startup, which
is probably an overestimate, that's 2500 new companies. Each year. They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2500 some would come close.
By
definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from
Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't
work for existing companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact
they'd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies
they started would hire more employees as they grew.
The
tricky part might seem to be how one defined a startup. But that could
be solved quite easily: let the market decide. Startup investors work
hard to find the best startups. The government could not do better than
to piggyback on their expertise, and use investment by recognized
startup investors as the test of whether a company was a real startup.
How
would the government decide who's a startup investor? The same way they
decide what counts as a university for student visas. We'll establish
our own accreditation procedure. We know who one another are.
10,000
people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards, but would
represent a huge increase in the pool of startup founders. I think this
would have such a visible effect on the economy that it would make the
legislator who introduced the bill famous. The only way to know for
sure would be to try it, and that would cost practically nothing.
http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html
The Founder Visa
Paul Graham - April 2009
I usually avoid
politics, but since we now seem to have an administration that's open
to suggestions, I'm going to risk making one. The single biggest thing
the government could do to increase the number of startups in this
country is a policy that would cost nothing: establish a new class of
visa for
The
biggest constraint on the number of new startups that get created in
the US is not tax policy or employment law or even Sarbanes-Oxley. It's
that we won't let the people who want to start them into the country.
Letting
just 10,000 startup founders into the country each year could have a
visible effect on the economy. If we assume 4 people per startup, which
is probably an overestimate, that's 2500 new companies. Each year. They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2500 some would come close.
By
definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from
Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't
work for existing companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact
they'd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies
they started would hire more employees as they grew.
The
tricky part might seem to be how one defined a startup. But that could
be solved quite easily: let the market decide. Startup investors work
hard to find the best startups. The government could not do better than
to piggyback on their expertise, and use investment by recognized
startup investors as the test of whether a company was a real startup.
How
would the government decide who's a startup investor? The same way they
decide what counts as a university for student visas. We'll establish
our own accreditation procedure. We know who one another are.
10,000
people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards, but would
represent a huge increase in the pool of startup founders. I think this
would have such a visible effect on the economy that it would make the
legislator who introduced the bill famous. The only way to know for
sure would be to try it, and that would cost practically nothing.
http://www.paulgraham.com/foundervisa.html