StartUp Visa Act: The Only Good Foreign Entrepreneur Is A Dead Foreign Entrepreneur

Those who have read my recent post about the state of US innovation capabilities, won’t find difficult to imagine my confusion with the StartUp Visa Act where the US is willing to grant visas and permanent residency to foreign entrepreneurs who are able to – read carefully – raise American dollars! Yes, foreign entrepreneurs who raise money from American VCs. I would like you to take a minute to enjoy the significance of this situation.

In the StartUp Visa Act, permanent residency is offered to those who will be able to create jobs (at least five) and attract/make $1 million in the first two years of the company. Of course, nobody is asked to invest their own money in the US.  They are asked to create jobs with money that American VCs are going to invest.

So the message that the senate is sending out there is that this means that there is more money than what the economy is capable of doing with. Of course the madness with which money printing has taken place in central bank could be the cause for this situation. But then again, why bringing people from the outside when unemployment is at 10%? Even worst, unemployment is between 7% and 10% in San Fransisco bay area, one the most innovative places on the planet. I am sure that plenty of people willing to start up a business can be find in that area. Some of them will have everything that it takes to run a business with success. So why this need to hiring entrepreneurs from aboard?

Well, the answer is very simple and it has something to do with the fact that foreigners are taking over American technology markets and that they are moving at a faster pace than the US in international markets. So it’s not that the US doesn’t know how to innovate, it’s more that the US forgot how to innovate better than others. Or we could say that others have learned to innovate better than the US. What ever the angle from which we look at it, the US is losing ground in the international innovation scene.

Basically, the idea with the StartUp Visa Act is to stop creative people from creating somewhere else than in the US. This is the USA’s strategy to stay competitive in global technology markets. The idea is to deprive other countries from the people that could make use of other people. This also appears to be a long term strategy if we consider the recent policies regarding state university endowments.