re: AMA: I came to this country on a H1B visa, am now a green card holder and work in tech

Looks like AMA doesn't mean "I'll answer anything."

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Do you think things are different now than 23 years ago in terms of American educated vs immigrant talent? Both in skill and need.

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"Frankly, I don't see much of a difference in intelligence between US-born white people and those born elsewhere. I had the privilege of working with incredibly intelligent individuals in graduate school, some of whom were from both groups. I now observe the same diversity of talent in my current workplace.

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Do you consider yourself grateful and lucky or do you consider yourself “necessary”?

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Great question. Would America have been fine without someone like me coming here? Absolutely. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had the chance to come here and build the life we have. Having said that, I would like to think we are a net positive to this country based on the amount of taxes we pay (both income and SALT), the money we spend etc. and are not a drag on the country in terms of consuming government resources.

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How have you seen companies abuse the H1B workers in your career? Did you try to stop it or did you have no say?

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There is definitely abuse in the H1B system that needs to be fixed, but I think that is mostly among the IT service companies. I have had the good fortune to work in externally large companies, where they can't game the system and the companies jump through multiple hoops and spend thousand of dollars in lawyer fees on paperwork before they can hire somebody on a H1B visa. Now that I am a hiring manager myself and interview folks throughout the year, given a choice, I would absolutely hire an American citizen over a foreign worker just to save us from all the months long delay and paperwork that come with hiring somebody that requires a visa sponsorship.

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Do you think there’s a hiring bias where Indians get in management and only hire other Indians?

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Nepotism exists in all walks of life and among all demographics I think. I have seen it among Indians, Chinese, Koreans etc., but having said that, yearly performance reviews at large tech companies are very formulaic and objective with 360 degrees reviews from cross functional business partners, so even if someone got hired over somebody else due to a prior relationship, they wouldn't survive in the role too long if they are not good at it. Mediocre workers get exposed and can't be protected too long.

Reading comprehension is fundamental.
Me culpa.

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We are deeply grateful for this country and ensure our children are developing an appreciation for it too as they grow older.

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Q: Again, leaving the legitimate debate over the issue of the proper level of legal immigration off the table, is the following statement controversial?

I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates.

A: Of course this is yet another trick question. It is not remotely controversial and any parent who does not limit their children’s consumption of the cultural rot promoted by corporate “entertainment” platforms are sh*tty parents.

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What bothers me about H1B isn’t the high paying jobs being taken but the entry level and/or blue collar jobs being taken. Part of what made me quit long haul trucking (besides getting old) is that it’s getting flooded with an innumerable amount of foreigners, most of whom are total retards who don’t belong behind the wheel.

Tl;dr if we have an economy that is “strong” but built on low quality labor and production then we don’t have a strong economy at all. That’s really my gripe

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The legal immigration discussion needs to be much more nuanced IMO. I can't argue against what you are saying in any way. Legal immigration needs to be points based and skills based on should scale up on down based on the number of jobs that are open at any given time or something to that effect to make is fair for US born American workers. But unfortunately that is too logical and complicated to work in Washington.

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Who would you have voted for?

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Trump. I am firmly in the Elon/Sacks/Vivek tech-right camp just given my education and industry background, but do know that not everyone here is onboard with the tech-right agenda right now. But the good thing among the Republicans is that at least there is a vigorous debate right now that is shining light on the issue, but with the Dems, any open debate would have been squashed.

Anecdotally, I saw a wild swing to the right among all my immigrant friends this last election given where the country was headed (away from meritocracy). What happened in Harris County in Texas was not an accident. I was part of such a community that shifted hard to the right and saw the vibe shift first hand sometime between 2022 and 2024.

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Who paid for your college degrees? (of both you and your wife)

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I already answered it. We took bank loans to pay for the first semester fees. Once we got familiar with the campus and our respective programs, we were able to both land graduate assistantships that helped us pay the rest of the way.

My sister in law is from Switzerland and works in IT. she been here in the country for about 7 years and started the process for green card when she came. When she met my brother and they got married a year ago the process was still not done. They payed a lawyer 4k to do the marriage green card and it’s about to be finished. I could not believe the timeline for this kind of thing

Congrats but take the emotional connection out of the discussion and look at what's best for this nation, not what's best for other countries. If Latinos wouldnt have done this then Trump would have lost the election based on their uproar on mass deportation of fellow Latinos.

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Came to the US in 23+ years ago

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The system has changed, and the abuse has got worse. The tech environment that has created a massive abusive system has changed from 23 yrs ago.