Very well said, Jordan. I’m an electrical engineer, and fortunately the state school I went to in the early 90s was almost entirely American students. I understand that’s not the case today.
This country invented the transistor, the computer, we built the first rockets and landed on the moon and Mars. Our culture of innovation leads to such things. We need to encourage American students to study STEM and then incentivize companies to hire them.
I briefly worked for a major tech company. My coworkers were 75% Indian and maybe another 20% Asian. Most of them were perfectly mediocre. (Then the company instituted a hiring freeze and declared all new work would be outsourced to their offices in India.) We can and should demand better than mediocre.
I’d like to add to my earlier comment. I was hired in to the major tech company in late 2021, when I quit my dream job over its vaccine mandate and was blackballed from my industry (aerospace) because of the mandate for federal contractors. The manager who hired me? Indian. His company had its own vaccine mandate, but he did something to get around it and get me in as a contractor. I will be eternally grateful to that man for helping me during an especially dark time in my life.
Not a surprise, Indians seem to take pleasure in end running systems... they enjoy breaking the rules. Going around a vaccine mandate is entirely in keeping with their culture.
I have 2 sons at one of the US biggest tech co’s. From listening to them the majority of the people they work with are mediocre Indians & female Asians. This is not a slight on any ethnicity but a calculated hiring choice. The Indians have less incentive to move up & will remain in grunt work level tech positions; the female Asians are in manager positions checking a couple of boxes for the company. Basically Americans are not willing to do grunt tech work if they’re smart enough to do tech in the first place & a female in tech can go anywhere.
Well, the idea is that you get promoted from the grunt work to something more advanced. Or, if you’re clever you figure out how to automate the task. Maybe part of the problem is that Americans are too lazy and entitled and think that an entry-level job is beneath them??
As I said if you’re above average in tech as an American you will have an edge as the language barrier plays a part. If you’re ability is on par with the majority of Indians that fill these positions you will be passed over as they are more accommodating & will accept less pay. Is this any different than bringing in immigrants to work in meat packing facilities? - they’re less hassle & will take lower pay.
I’m grateful for the immigrant company founders that gave me the American a long career in tech. Their education in their homeland was far superior to my public school drivel and they were willing to take big risks.
You don't have to invoke theoretical scenarios. About three years ago the Indian government was thinking of bringing in refugees from Bangladesh... Indian Hindus went on a rampage and started burning down buildings to protest that decision.
India is in Asia, so by your calculations, the company was 95% Asian.
Furthermore, the Brits invented the computer, not the Americans. SEE ALSO Tommy Flowers, Alan Turing. Von Neumann immigrated to America after the War and set up the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. We did, however, create the transistor.
Upon further thought, it would have been better if I pointed to other American innovations like the electric light bulb (Edison) and airplane (Wright Brothers). My brain wasn’t thinking clearly yesterday.
I was thinking like the ENIAC which was built here. Maybe my point is something about Americans having a knack for turning the theory into practical reality. Your point taken that the ideas and contributions were developing and percolating around the world.
Let me say a word about Tommy Flowers: Flowers invented Colossus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer) during the war, but he signed the Official Secrets Act which allowed the Americans to be first to the commercial market. Because he was sworn to secrecy, he never get his due. I only know of his work because of Jeremy Clarkson’s _Inventions that Changed the World_ series, specifically the episode _The Computer_. (https://youtu.be/yv0KBOGYLdQ?si=pfeWjIpoDQBNI-lC)
Thanks, I’ll have to read up on Flowers and Colossus. My bachelors degree is Computer Engineering and I am very interested in the history of early machines.
There’s _Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers_ (https://amzn.to/4gAUNKi) a series of essays on the machine and then there’s also _Computer: A History of the Information Machine (The Sloan Technology Series)_ (https://amzn.to/40bHcDd) both of which will, I think, be of interest to you.
"There aren't enough qualified Americans with the correct technical skills," bemoans the tech company as they underpay foreign workers that they overwork and treat like serfs under constant threat of deportation. "We just don't understand why Americans don't want to take the positions on the same terms as H1B workers," they cry as those worker's entire family are living at 1/50th the cost of living in America.
It isn't hard to understand what is going on. This is the most basic concept of the free market: if there isn't enough of something, offer to pay more. Once the pay is high enough, the US will produce more qualified people. What tech companies do is the opposite: they pay less by exploiting worker visa programs and then they complain that they need more visa workers to work at the lower wages since no one else will.
more like exploiting regulations they didn't make (the visa programs.)
the fact that immigrants will nearly always accept lower wages than native workers for the same jobs, also isn't created by the "bros" in charge but instead exploited by them.
for the sakes of argument and clarity, though, which regulations are you referring to?
In speaking with Dr Charles Teamer, who worked closely with HBCU Dillard University in New Orleans, regarding accessing STEM opportunities for African-American graduates of the university, I was toild that alhtough the school had instituted a whole new field of study for the internet generation, that by the time those students had graduated, the field had already surpassed the resources available to those students, and that employers would regard those graduates the same as they would someone with no experience at all.
I asked him whether tech giants like FANG would supply materials to the school in order to keep the curriculum up to date. Dr Teamer told me that it was simply too easy for those companies to use H1-B visas to hire foreigners to those positions rather than train eager American students to take those positions. I don’t know if there is some kind of tax benefit available to HBCUs that would assist them in getting their graduates into tech jobs, but whatever those benefits are, they seem to pale in comparison to the benefits recovered by providing visas to foreigners. Sad.
Great points, Stephen. I'm a boomer, EE+math degrees, and I'd never get hired today because I proved theorems rather than code robotics in python. While the STEM summer programs are good, they don't substitute for fundamentals. If companies didn't have H1-B's, they'd be happy to train smart kids just enough to do a job well, get good productivity at minimum wage, but pose no threat to taking their supervisor's job.
Tip to kids - do all the problems at the end of the chapter, math, physics, whatever. You might not get rich, but you'll own your future.
LOL! I was destined to be an engineer, but most folks don't know until they're in college, or they're working two jobs and eating beans and rice. So, I was lucky, thank God.
Even at that I didn't grow up until I was 30. That's endemic in this country because we have it too good.
Tough one for me as an American in the tech sector for 25 years.
The fact is that Indians are not all brilliant but as a general rule they will put in a heck of a lot of hours when here in the US compared to many Americans. There is no work life balance with Indians.
I’d put the kibosh on more outsourcing first of all.
Their main competitive advantage is ethnic nepotism. Cognizant just lost a court case wherein a jury found that the company discriminated against non-Indians. It was a jury trial, meaning that's the best evidence available that the company actually had a racist hiring policy.
The primary and secondary school system has failed. Thus, there are not enough US-born students with the qualifications necessary to enter science/math/engineering/tech programs at the university level. Those positions are currently being filled by foreign students who do have the qualifications.
Additionally, bright students who succeed academically in spite of the failure of the school system opt for not for the sciences, but for the riches promised by Wall Street. Students who would otherwise be exceptional physicists become financial engineers earning generational wealth at hedge funds.
In order to solve the problem, the US school system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Second, the financial industry needs rethinking. When an uber-wealthy class is spawned by investment banks and hedge funds, a class that creates NOTHING yet amazingly can transfer massive amounts of money to itself, something is seriously wrong. There is a misalignment present - a bubble - that is creating misallocations of resources, talent and capital.
If these two areas can be addressed, America can return as the world's premier economy.
That's exactly right, I posted a very similar comment. Until we fix our culture and school systems, we just won't have tech/stem talent here and will need to import it.
"Thus, there are not enough US-born students with the qualifications necessary to enter science/math/engineering/tech programs at the university level"
That depends on what you mean by programs? You seem to forget that the USA expanded its STEM programs beyond domestic capacity in order to provide education to foreign students. The idea was that foreign students could come and study and then they would return home to take those skills with them.
" Students who would otherwise be exceptional physicists become financial engineers"
That happened in the 80s due to an overproduction of physics PhDs. In short, the universities were pumping out too many graduates. The first wave of quants showed up in Wall Street as a result of that misallocation of resources. There was also a massive overproduction of economics and biology PhDs in the 70s and 80s.
I agree with Nathan that the US school system is a disaster and many US students are not prepared to take rigorous programs of any sort in college or university.
However, the H1B issue has been studied by academics since the late 1990s. There is no shortage of tech workers in the USA. The EPI and other economics outfits studied that issue during the dot com boom and found that the claims of a shortage were nonsense. The USA produces more STEM graduates than the number of STEM jobs that open up each year.
Excellent Jordan. Elon's stance is total BS. My father had only a GED. I worked my way through college and earned a Master's degree (EE) as a Hughes Aircraft fellow. And made major contributions to AI, NLP and autonomous systems.
I resent being called "lazy" because I am an American.
This is all about reducing wages. Indian subcontnent workers are indentured servants.
They accept whatever their company gives them. And as others have commented - the majority of them are mediocre. Their only advantage is that they work for less $.
Their upbrining in India indoctrinates them into a caste system . India still has "untouchables".
This is alien to the American experience - where you are judged on what you do - not who your father was.
You are absolutely right, and this is something that Americans seem to be unaware of. I'm actually surprised to see that someone pointed this out.
If you go back in time and read Alexis de Tocqueville, he remarked upon the absence of a class or caste structure. One man could speak to another openly in the USA without any fear of reprisal or shame.
There are groups in the USA whose culture is completely antithetical to this aspect of America. The Hindus are one such group, as they are insanely aware of differences in the various social strata in their societies. They also, in my experience, are extremely racist towards both whites and blacks.
Americans have no idea what they are importing. Anyone advocating immigration from India should be forced to spend a month there. You don't want to import low trust, clannish people into a high trust, open culture. They will utterly demolish it.
Good on Jordan, calling balls and strikes. It would be easy for him to go full dark MAGA in support of Elon and co, but that's not how he rolls. One reason why I'm a subscriber.
I live in SF, and I think he's being a bit kind to these guys. They want cheap H1-B labor and will say whatever they think will keep that spigot flowing. I've worked with H1-B workers numerous times and it's shameful with what they have to put up with during their indentured servitude. The tech companies have few qualms with exploiting them.
There is no STEM shortage in computer science-- with the number of ways, inexpensive online courses and such, that you can get up to speed with web and other coding, the barrier to entry is quite low. Don't misunderstand me-- tech work *is* more than just coding and you have to have some experience to know what works and what doesn't, plus the drive to learn this stuff, but nuclear physics or chemical engineering it's not.
The companies themselves prefer to hire H1B applicants because they know they hold the cards.
Absolutely true. This has been studied for 30 plus years by everyone from the EPI to the Center for Immigration Studies. There has never been any evidence of a STEM labor shortage in the USA, even during the dot com bubble.
There was, however, a pricing issue: companies wanted labor at lower rates. Hence, opening the floodgates. There was a famous NSF memo to that effect.
There are specialized areas of CS that are easily equivalent in difficulty to the hard sciences. Some areas of software development might even be more intellectually challenging, such as highly parallel scientific computing, compiler construction, etc. However, most jobs in big companies aren't at that level.
Until we solve our vast cultural issues in the US, we will need to brain-drain other countries. Our schools are teaching insane ideological theories instead of math, English, and computers. China and Taiwan don't need to import talent because their school system hasn't been overtaken by left wing interests. Every major institution in the US has been hijacked by the political left, and that is the root cause of this problem.
You do not need to 'brain drain' other countries by importing software developers. There is no shortage right now. In fact, there have been massive layoffs in the software industry in the last year.
Software can also be done remotely. There is no need for a software developer to be in the same location as his or her team. FAANG was working remotely before the 'pandemic'. A surgeon has to be onsite, a software engineer does not.
The USA produces more than enough STEM grads and CS/EE/Physics grads to fill the available jobs. Exceptional individuals can come into the USA through an O1 visa.
I don't think that you are aware that the H1B is being massively abused. You can go online right now and see that they have used the H1B to import cashiers, clerks, waitresses, plumbers, accountants, exotic dancers (etc). The program is riddled with fraud.
I am aware that H1-B is being abused. I am not making a black and white argument that H1-B is good, I am saying it's needed in general due to cultural rot and a failing school system. H1-B should be pared down, but that said, I don't agree that there is plenty of STEM talent here. Not at all.
Yes! I have been following this "conversation" on X and I am proud of our American citizens that are pushing back on this idea. No I am not a racist....but the majority of the responses seem to suggest the STEM jobs have been overtaken by people from India. This was a subject a year or two ago when our engineers exposed the thousands of these workers were taking jobs at places like Microsoft, Amazon and Google. In addition to bringing back mfg to the US perhaps Trump needs to offer incentives to companies that hire & train American citizens.
"the majority of the responses seem to suggest the STEM jobs have been overtaken by people from India"
Data on H1B visas is available online. It clearly shows that India utterly dominates.
You should be very suspicious that India is the major source of 'talent'. Look at the ranking of its universities, look at its human capital, and then compare it to China---which has a 6000 year old tradition of exams, a higher IQ population, and very good universities. If foreign talent were coming in based on merit you'd see Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Finns, Swedes, Germans (etc), not Indians. Yes, they have a billion+ people, but so does China.
Ro Khanna saved Oracle from being severely punished for immigration and employment fraud. He is a Communist second generation Indian-American that represents Silicon Valley in the House. He is a corrupt product of racist Indian tech zillionaires helping them get high- caste Indians into the USA via immigration fraud and civil rights violations. According to the Obama and Biden DOJ, white American male engineers HAVE NO CIVIL RIGHTS.
Twenty years ago, I would agree with you... However, when provided the option of working for $100 or sitting on the couch for $100, the majority of the latest generation will happily take another bong hit on the couch. Add to that the shaming of winners and, well... The gene pool ain't as deep as it once was.
That being said, it would be nice to nail some HR departments that abuse the H-1B program in order to maintain the modern-day indentured servitude it has become.
Short term the tech bros are right. Long term, it is a disaster. I am a long term guy so we need to fix our domestic problems. Hopefully, we have time.
Musk and the others have their own agendas. When their views match my own, that is good but in this case I think they are wrong.
That said, it will be very disappointing if they go ad hominem and cancel culture on those who disagree with them. That, to me, will be a test of where the new administration is headed.
I've lost so many colleagues and friends to this phenomenon. 80k gone in last 2 years. It's also straight outsourcing of jobs directly to India. No visa required there.
My college son was very gifted in HS and "majored" in the STEM track. Was admitted to his college of choice. Long story short: He couldn't understand or communicate with his Chinese professors. Add covid zoom school and lab shut downs for additional fun.
At that same HS today, there are 99% Indian students. They won't be on a visa though. Wonder where they'll end up.
If companies follow the law then they must pay H1B workers comparable salaries to citizens in comparable positions. Our education system is failing in all aspects. It does not produce enough STEM graduates with real skills. It discourages any discussion outside the woke progressive ideaology. In addition, our society is failing to inculcate a reasonable work ethic in many young citizens. Without massive changes in those areas we cannot be competitive without H1B workers. If we are not competitve then our standard of living will fall. It will be difficult to reverse 40+ years of failed education and societal decay in a short time period!
"pay H1B workers comparable salaries to citizens in comparable positions."
it's completely legal for companies to set those salaries lower than Americans who've either paid or indebted themselves to the educational system will accept.
then they can complain that "nobody wants to work" (at our wages) and they can freely hire as many cheaper immigrants as can be imported across the borders on those visa plans.
Very well said, Jordan. I’m an electrical engineer, and fortunately the state school I went to in the early 90s was almost entirely American students. I understand that’s not the case today.
This country invented the transistor, the computer, we built the first rockets and landed on the moon and Mars. Our culture of innovation leads to such things. We need to encourage American students to study STEM and then incentivize companies to hire them.
I briefly worked for a major tech company. My coworkers were 75% Indian and maybe another 20% Asian. Most of them were perfectly mediocre. (Then the company instituted a hiring freeze and declared all new work would be outsourced to their offices in India.) We can and should demand better than mediocre.
I’d like to add to my earlier comment. I was hired in to the major tech company in late 2021, when I quit my dream job over its vaccine mandate and was blackballed from my industry (aerospace) because of the mandate for federal contractors. The manager who hired me? Indian. His company had its own vaccine mandate, but he did something to get around it and get me in as a contractor. I will be eternally grateful to that man for helping me during an especially dark time in my life.
Not a surprise, Indians seem to take pleasure in end running systems... they enjoy breaking the rules. Going around a vaccine mandate is entirely in keeping with their culture.
I have 2 sons at one of the US biggest tech co’s. From listening to them the majority of the people they work with are mediocre Indians & female Asians. This is not a slight on any ethnicity but a calculated hiring choice. The Indians have less incentive to move up & will remain in grunt work level tech positions; the female Asians are in manager positions checking a couple of boxes for the company. Basically Americans are not willing to do grunt tech work if they’re smart enough to do tech in the first place & a female in tech can go anywhere.
Well, the idea is that you get promoted from the grunt work to something more advanced. Or, if you’re clever you figure out how to automate the task. Maybe part of the problem is that Americans are too lazy and entitled and think that an entry-level job is beneath them??
As I said if you’re above average in tech as an American you will have an edge as the language barrier plays a part. If you’re ability is on par with the majority of Indians that fill these positions you will be passed over as they are more accommodating & will accept less pay. Is this any different than bringing in immigrants to work in meat packing facilities? - they’re less hassle & will take lower pay.
Thanks for sharing this. Appreciate the insight
I’m grateful for the immigrant company founders that gave me the American a long career in tech. Their education in their homeland was far superior to my public school drivel and they were willing to take big risks.
The Indians are stupid, vicious and serious.
We 🇺🇸 aren’t serious.
If we went to India to take their jobs they’d light us on fire in the streets.
You don't have to invoke theoretical scenarios. About three years ago the Indian government was thinking of bringing in refugees from Bangladesh... Indian Hindus went on a rampage and started burning down buildings to protest that decision.
The fought the British empire and won for God’s sake: what hope do we have?
India is in Asia, so by your calculations, the company was 95% Asian.
Furthermore, the Brits invented the computer, not the Americans. SEE ALSO Tommy Flowers, Alan Turing. Von Neumann immigrated to America after the War and set up the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. We did, however, create the transistor.
Upon further thought, it would have been better if I pointed to other American innovations like the electric light bulb (Edison) and airplane (Wright Brothers). My brain wasn’t thinking clearly yesterday.
I was thinking like the ENIAC which was built here. Maybe my point is something about Americans having a knack for turning the theory into practical reality. Your point taken that the ideas and contributions were developing and percolating around the world.
Let me say a word about Tommy Flowers: Flowers invented Colossus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer) during the war, but he signed the Official Secrets Act which allowed the Americans to be first to the commercial market. Because he was sworn to secrecy, he never get his due. I only know of his work because of Jeremy Clarkson’s _Inventions that Changed the World_ series, specifically the episode _The Computer_. (https://youtu.be/yv0KBOGYLdQ?si=pfeWjIpoDQBNI-lC)
Thanks, I’ll have to read up on Flowers and Colossus. My bachelors degree is Computer Engineering and I am very interested in the history of early machines.
There’s _Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers_ (https://amzn.to/4gAUNKi) a series of essays on the machine and then there’s also _Computer: A History of the Information Machine (The Sloan Technology Series)_ (https://amzn.to/40bHcDd) both of which will, I think, be of interest to you.
Happy reading!
you'd do better keeping this oft-spammed comment/ad under articles with at least a little bit of related context...
"There aren't enough qualified Americans with the correct technical skills," bemoans the tech company as they underpay foreign workers that they overwork and treat like serfs under constant threat of deportation. "We just don't understand why Americans don't want to take the positions on the same terms as H1B workers," they cry as those worker's entire family are living at 1/50th the cost of living in America.
It isn't hard to understand what is going on. This is the most basic concept of the free market: if there isn't enough of something, offer to pay more. Once the pay is high enough, the US will produce more qualified people. What tech companies do is the opposite: they pay less by exploiting worker visa programs and then they complain that they need more visa workers to work at the lower wages since no one else will.
And how much of that is bowing to regulators the tech bros didn’t make?
more like exploiting regulations they didn't make (the visa programs.)
the fact that immigrants will nearly always accept lower wages than native workers for the same jobs, also isn't created by the "bros" in charge but instead exploited by them.
for the sakes of argument and clarity, though, which regulations are you referring to?
In speaking with Dr Charles Teamer, who worked closely with HBCU Dillard University in New Orleans, regarding accessing STEM opportunities for African-American graduates of the university, I was toild that alhtough the school had instituted a whole new field of study for the internet generation, that by the time those students had graduated, the field had already surpassed the resources available to those students, and that employers would regard those graduates the same as they would someone with no experience at all.
I asked him whether tech giants like FANG would supply materials to the school in order to keep the curriculum up to date. Dr Teamer told me that it was simply too easy for those companies to use H1-B visas to hire foreigners to those positions rather than train eager American students to take those positions. I don’t know if there is some kind of tax benefit available to HBCUs that would assist them in getting their graduates into tech jobs, but whatever those benefits are, they seem to pale in comparison to the benefits recovered by providing visas to foreigners. Sad.
Great points, Stephen. I'm a boomer, EE+math degrees, and I'd never get hired today because I proved theorems rather than code robotics in python. While the STEM summer programs are good, they don't substitute for fundamentals. If companies didn't have H1-B's, they'd be happy to train smart kids just enough to do a job well, get good productivity at minimum wage, but pose no threat to taking their supervisor's job.
Tip to kids - do all the problems at the end of the chapter, math, physics, whatever. You might not get rich, but you'll own your future.
Even the even ones? But they're HARD and they don't give you the answers!
LOL! I was destined to be an engineer, but most folks don't know until they're in college, or they're working two jobs and eating beans and rice. So, I was lucky, thank God.
Even at that I didn't grow up until I was 30. That's endemic in this country because we have it too good.
Tough one for me as an American in the tech sector for 25 years.
The fact is that Indians are not all brilliant but as a general rule they will put in a heck of a lot of hours when here in the US compared to many Americans. There is no work life balance with Indians.
I’d put the kibosh on more outsourcing first of all.
Their main competitive advantage is ethnic nepotism. Cognizant just lost a court case wherein a jury found that the company discriminated against non-Indians. It was a jury trial, meaning that's the best evidence available that the company actually had a racist hiring policy.
The primary and secondary school system has failed. Thus, there are not enough US-born students with the qualifications necessary to enter science/math/engineering/tech programs at the university level. Those positions are currently being filled by foreign students who do have the qualifications.
Additionally, bright students who succeed academically in spite of the failure of the school system opt for not for the sciences, but for the riches promised by Wall Street. Students who would otherwise be exceptional physicists become financial engineers earning generational wealth at hedge funds.
In order to solve the problem, the US school system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Second, the financial industry needs rethinking. When an uber-wealthy class is spawned by investment banks and hedge funds, a class that creates NOTHING yet amazingly can transfer massive amounts of money to itself, something is seriously wrong. There is a misalignment present - a bubble - that is creating misallocations of resources, talent and capital.
If these two areas can be addressed, America can return as the world's premier economy.
That's exactly right, I posted a very similar comment. Until we fix our culture and school systems, we just won't have tech/stem talent here and will need to import it.
"Thus, there are not enough US-born students with the qualifications necessary to enter science/math/engineering/tech programs at the university level"
That depends on what you mean by programs? You seem to forget that the USA expanded its STEM programs beyond domestic capacity in order to provide education to foreign students. The idea was that foreign students could come and study and then they would return home to take those skills with them.
" Students who would otherwise be exceptional physicists become financial engineers"
That happened in the 80s due to an overproduction of physics PhDs. In short, the universities were pumping out too many graduates. The first wave of quants showed up in Wall Street as a result of that misallocation of resources. There was also a massive overproduction of economics and biology PhDs in the 70s and 80s.
I agree with Nathan that the US school system is a disaster and many US students are not prepared to take rigorous programs of any sort in college or university.
However, the H1B issue has been studied by academics since the late 1990s. There is no shortage of tech workers in the USA. The EPI and other economics outfits studied that issue during the dot com boom and found that the claims of a shortage were nonsense. The USA produces more STEM graduates than the number of STEM jobs that open up each year.
Well, don't hold your breath. It won't, more than likely, happen.
Excellent Jordan. Elon's stance is total BS. My father had only a GED. I worked my way through college and earned a Master's degree (EE) as a Hughes Aircraft fellow. And made major contributions to AI, NLP and autonomous systems.
I resent being called "lazy" because I am an American.
This is all about reducing wages. Indian subcontnent workers are indentured servants.
They accept whatever their company gives them. And as others have commented - the majority of them are mediocre. Their only advantage is that they work for less $.
Their upbrining in India indoctrinates them into a caste system . India still has "untouchables".
This is alien to the American experience - where you are judged on what you do - not who your father was.
You are absolutely right, and this is something that Americans seem to be unaware of. I'm actually surprised to see that someone pointed this out.
If you go back in time and read Alexis de Tocqueville, he remarked upon the absence of a class or caste structure. One man could speak to another openly in the USA without any fear of reprisal or shame.
There are groups in the USA whose culture is completely antithetical to this aspect of America. The Hindus are one such group, as they are insanely aware of differences in the various social strata in their societies. They also, in my experience, are extremely racist towards both whites and blacks.
Americans have no idea what they are importing. Anyone advocating immigration from India should be forced to spend a month there. You don't want to import low trust, clannish people into a high trust, open culture. They will utterly demolish it.
Good on Jordan, calling balls and strikes. It would be easy for him to go full dark MAGA in support of Elon and co, but that's not how he rolls. One reason why I'm a subscriber.
I live in SF, and I think he's being a bit kind to these guys. They want cheap H1-B labor and will say whatever they think will keep that spigot flowing. I've worked with H1-B workers numerous times and it's shameful with what they have to put up with during their indentured servitude. The tech companies have few qualms with exploiting them.
There is no STEM shortage in computer science-- with the number of ways, inexpensive online courses and such, that you can get up to speed with web and other coding, the barrier to entry is quite low. Don't misunderstand me-- tech work *is* more than just coding and you have to have some experience to know what works and what doesn't, plus the drive to learn this stuff, but nuclear physics or chemical engineering it's not.
The companies themselves prefer to hire H1B applicants because they know they hold the cards.
"There is no STEM shortage in computer science"
Absolutely true. This has been studied for 30 plus years by everyone from the EPI to the Center for Immigration Studies. There has never been any evidence of a STEM labor shortage in the USA, even during the dot com bubble.
There was, however, a pricing issue: companies wanted labor at lower rates. Hence, opening the floodgates. There was a famous NSF memo to that effect.
There are specialized areas of CS that are easily equivalent in difficulty to the hard sciences. Some areas of software development might even be more intellectually challenging, such as highly parallel scientific computing, compiler construction, etc. However, most jobs in big companies aren't at that level.
Until we solve our vast cultural issues in the US, we will need to brain-drain other countries. Our schools are teaching insane ideological theories instead of math, English, and computers. China and Taiwan don't need to import talent because their school system hasn't been overtaken by left wing interests. Every major institution in the US has been hijacked by the political left, and that is the root cause of this problem.
How did the Taliban resolve their educational issues with American education.
You do not need to 'brain drain' other countries by importing software developers. There is no shortage right now. In fact, there have been massive layoffs in the software industry in the last year.
Software can also be done remotely. There is no need for a software developer to be in the same location as his or her team. FAANG was working remotely before the 'pandemic'. A surgeon has to be onsite, a software engineer does not.
The USA produces more than enough STEM grads and CS/EE/Physics grads to fill the available jobs. Exceptional individuals can come into the USA through an O1 visa.
I don't think that you are aware that the H1B is being massively abused. You can go online right now and see that they have used the H1B to import cashiers, clerks, waitresses, plumbers, accountants, exotic dancers (etc). The program is riddled with fraud.
I am aware that H1-B is being abused. I am not making a black and white argument that H1-B is good, I am saying it's needed in general due to cultural rot and a failing school system. H1-B should be pared down, but that said, I don't agree that there is plenty of STEM talent here. Not at all.
Yes! I have been following this "conversation" on X and I am proud of our American citizens that are pushing back on this idea. No I am not a racist....but the majority of the responses seem to suggest the STEM jobs have been overtaken by people from India. This was a subject a year or two ago when our engineers exposed the thousands of these workers were taking jobs at places like Microsoft, Amazon and Google. In addition to bringing back mfg to the US perhaps Trump needs to offer incentives to companies that hire & train American citizens.
"the majority of the responses seem to suggest the STEM jobs have been overtaken by people from India"
Data on H1B visas is available online. It clearly shows that India utterly dominates.
You should be very suspicious that India is the major source of 'talent'. Look at the ranking of its universities, look at its human capital, and then compare it to China---which has a 6000 year old tradition of exams, a higher IQ population, and very good universities. If foreign talent were coming in based on merit you'd see Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Finns, Swedes, Germans (etc), not Indians. Yes, they have a billion+ people, but so does China.
Ro Khanna saved Oracle from being severely punished for immigration and employment fraud. He is a Communist second generation Indian-American that represents Silicon Valley in the House. He is a corrupt product of racist Indian tech zillionaires helping them get high- caste Indians into the USA via immigration fraud and civil rights violations. According to the Obama and Biden DOJ, white American male engineers HAVE NO CIVIL RIGHTS.
Indians have civil rights because in India they light the competition on fire.
Learn, or die.
Twenty years ago, I would agree with you... However, when provided the option of working for $100 or sitting on the couch for $100, the majority of the latest generation will happily take another bong hit on the couch. Add to that the shaming of winners and, well... The gene pool ain't as deep as it once was.
That being said, it would be nice to nail some HR departments that abuse the H-1B program in order to maintain the modern-day indentured servitude it has become.
That’s not the latest generation that’s humanity.
Thank You for writing about this! I've noticed the usual con inc media had been real quiet on the topic.
Short term the tech bros are right. Long term, it is a disaster. I am a long term guy so we need to fix our domestic problems. Hopefully, we have time.
Yes, the pain now or irreversible ruin later.
Musk and the others have their own agendas. When their views match my own, that is good but in this case I think they are wrong.
That said, it will be very disappointing if they go ad hominem and cancel culture on those who disagree with them. That, to me, will be a test of where the new administration is headed.
I've lost so many colleagues and friends to this phenomenon. 80k gone in last 2 years. It's also straight outsourcing of jobs directly to India. No visa required there.
My college son was very gifted in HS and "majored" in the STEM track. Was admitted to his college of choice. Long story short: He couldn't understand or communicate with his Chinese professors. Add covid zoom school and lab shut downs for additional fun.
At that same HS today, there are 99% Indian students. They won't be on a visa though. Wonder where they'll end up.
Vote democratic until it’s too late, or for clearly quisling Republicans… pay the price.
If companies follow the law then they must pay H1B workers comparable salaries to citizens in comparable positions. Our education system is failing in all aspects. It does not produce enough STEM graduates with real skills. It discourages any discussion outside the woke progressive ideaology. In addition, our society is failing to inculcate a reasonable work ethic in many young citizens. Without massive changes in those areas we cannot be competitive without H1B workers. If we are not competitve then our standard of living will fall. It will be difficult to reverse 40+ years of failed education and societal decay in a short time period!
"pay H1B workers comparable salaries to citizens in comparable positions."
it's completely legal for companies to set those salaries lower than Americans who've either paid or indebted themselves to the educational system will accept.
then they can complain that "nobody wants to work" (at our wages) and they can freely hire as many cheaper immigrants as can be imported across the borders on those visa plans.