I see this as a combination of three forces at play: AI, WFH, and Skillset--all adding downward pressure to hiring talent in the U.S.:
1) While A.I. may now be only adding 10-20% of productivity gains, the rapid pace of improvement leaves open the possibility that tha gains can be soon much more than that. So, instead of scaling your company now, if you can afford to, wait out a bit and see where this goes.
2) Even though much of BigTech is clawing back WFH, startups aren't as much. And once you introduce WFH to your culture and processes, it is hard to reason with the idea that you should pay $200K/year for an engineer when it can cost you a fraction (possibly 20-50% of that) to hire them remotely from another country, when also nowadays most of these remote employees are more than willing to work in EST/PST timezones. This used to be the case before COVID, but now many more startups have accepted and adapted to the idea of WFH.
3) While advanced skillsets and deep experience is necessary in many (but not most) startups, and while these skills are more difficult to find in India or Pakistan, the reality is, for many, many tech companies, most of the work doesn't require top-notch skills. You don't need a top 99% percentile in frontend engineering skills for a 1-year-old "name whatever category" app. And with the recent rise of focus on profitability, frugality, and the difficulty in fund-raising, being cognizant of cost per talent is now a thing.
I think Elon and Vivek's comments are more nuanced than they are taken. Elon, given he's at the cutting edge of engineering, must be having difficulty hiring top-99.9%-percentile talent against BigTech, and wants to open the pool of these types of talent from elsewhere. I don't think he wants H1Bs for React Native engineers. I am interpreting his comments as "I want to suck-in all A.I. researchers into America".
H1B has been around for a while now. It can't take more than a moment of original research to realize it's vastly used for junior roles & a large percentage of consulting outsourcing houses who charge much, pay little and deliver nothing.
| I think Elon and Vivek's comments are more nuanced than they are taken.
If they are, they have the platform to provide that nuance. Take a look at the public H1B data for Tesla (disclaimer it doesn't tell the full story), it does not seem like they are vying for the top-99.9%.
It seems odd we're giving billionaires the benefit of the doubt.
They are positioning themselves to win, and that's totally fine in the system we're in, but let's not assume they are friends of the working class.
> 3) While advanced skillsets and deep experience is necessary in many (but not most) startups, and while these skills are more difficult to find in India or Pakistan, the reality is, for many, many tech companies, most of the work doesn't require top-notch skills. You don't need a top 99% percentile in frontend engineering skills for a 1-year-old "name whatever category" app. And with the recent rise of focus on profitability, frugality, and the difficulty in fund-raising, being cognizant of cost per talent is now a thing.
a. Note that "outside of the US" covers more than India and Pakistan. Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc. all have sizeable research or R&D centers in France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, UK, etc. Most of these countries have engineers of a level comparable (better by some metrics, worse by others) to US engineers.
b. I've known several top-notch programmers from India. One of them is an important contributor to the Linux kernel, another to the core of Firefox. I have no clue how common that is, but be wary of stereotypes.
Tesla wasn't paying as much as the big tech companies, which meant he didn't have access to that top 1%. By opening the door to more H-1B visas, he could ideally flood the market with international candidates and attract higher skills at a lower cost.
While this approach is self-serving, it makes sense. He could acquire that top talent today if he was willing to pay for it—people would leave their current jobs for a pay upgrade. But he's not willing to do that. So, he needs more candidates.
If someone is good then they are able to compete for more highly paid positions and therefore aren't working for 20% of the salary.
So in the end you shoot yourself in the foot, especially in startups where crappy code leads your team to work at a snails pace as your code becomes a spaghetti tangled mess. Then, once it does you end up hiring the expensive guys to come in as consultants to try to get back to what you could have avoided in the first place. Then you have to hope that in the meantime you haven't had any major security issues...
1) While A.I. may now be only adding 10-20% of productivity gains, the rapid pace of improvement leaves open the possibility that tha gains can be soon much more than that. So, instead of scaling your company now, if you can afford to, wait out a bit and see where this goes.
2) Even though much of BigTech is clawing back WFH, startups aren't as much. And once you introduce WFH to your culture and processes, it is hard to reason with the idea that you should pay $200K/year for an engineer when it can cost you a fraction (possibly 20-50% of that) to hire them remotely from another country, when also nowadays most of these remote employees are more than willing to work in EST/PST timezones. This used to be the case before COVID, but now many more startups have accepted and adapted to the idea of WFH.
3) While advanced skillsets and deep experience is necessary in many (but not most) startups, and while these skills are more difficult to find in India or Pakistan, the reality is, for many, many tech companies, most of the work doesn't require top-notch skills. You don't need a top 99% percentile in frontend engineering skills for a 1-year-old "name whatever category" app. And with the recent rise of focus on profitability, frugality, and the difficulty in fund-raising, being cognizant of cost per talent is now a thing.
I think Elon and Vivek's comments are more nuanced than they are taken. Elon, given he's at the cutting edge of engineering, must be having difficulty hiring top-99.9%-percentile talent against BigTech, and wants to open the pool of these types of talent from elsewhere. I don't think he wants H1Bs for React Native engineers. I am interpreting his comments as "I want to suck-in all A.I. researchers into America".