Re: H1B MAGA debate

I've helped numerous physicists and engineers get O1 (alien of extraordinary ability) and H1B visas. The former tend to be PhDs (eg Russian theoretical physicist from top university) and the latter tend to be engineers with more applied backgrounds.

I also helped @Dominic2306 Dominic Cummings and No 10 Downing St. reform skilled immigration to the UK.

The following are all true statements:

1. O1 threshold is high. People who get this are usually PhDs from top programs who have published significant research and are internationally recognized. Stealing these people from other countries is great for the US economy, bad for their home countries, and has a negative effect on job prospects for really talented Americans (let's not kid around).

2. H1B: There are many super talented people that US companies would like to bring here, and the only way to do it is to enter the horrible, unpredictable H1B lottery. (Example: graduating CMU MS AI/ML students from India that we interviewed at Superfocus.) These people generally won't qualify for O1 but are still super valuable. Similar impact on economy and jobs as #1 above.

3. There are lots of NOT TALENTED H1B workers brought in by US companies simply to reduce costs - bc they can do the work more cheaply, are less likely to leave for a better job, etc. Any mid-level IT worker in the US is familiar with this situation - they are not making it up.

H1B could be converted from a crap lottery system to a merit-based system more along O1 lines. This would require more resources, for specialized review of applications, but would be worth it to the US economy.

OF COURSE immigration hurts US workers that have to compete with the new workers. It increases supply and lowers the local value of labor. This is true for both high- and low-skill work. (Don't believe crappy studies done by "economists" based on weak data and influenced by ideological priors.)

But high-skill immigrants make the US economy (eg SV) more competitive and able to WIN important tech competitions. Some of these competitions lead to WINNER TAKE ALL MONOPOLIES with returns to scale (eg FAANG). Or, they let the US dominate a specific industry, set standards, leap ahead in R&D, etc.

PRC has as much talent as the Rest of the World combined - significantly more than the US produces domestically - SEE BELOW. 

If US tech companies want to compete with Chinese counterparts, they NEED to import top talent in categories #1 and #2 or they have NO HOPE OF WINNING.

Take AI as an example. Probably ~50% of all top AI researchers in the US come from China, and the remainder are drawn from all over the world. Only a minority are US-born. (Source: Global AI Talent Tracker.)