Silicon Valley veterans are calling for new laws to encourage more technology entrepreneurs to move to the US, as the area attempts to hold on to its crown as the world’s high-tech hotspot.
Reform of US immigration laws is one of the hot topics facing US President Barack Obama’s administration.
The Internet campaign, which has the support of a range of entrepreneurs and investors, is encouraging the White House to back a “startup visa” giving high-tech entrepreneurs US residency in return for starting a company.
The US technology industry, particularly in northern California, has long relied on bringing in talent from overseas. A quarter of US technology companies have foreign-born founders, and more than half of all Silicon Valley businesses were founded by immigrants.
The Founders Visa campaign argues that regulations stifle innovation by forcing students to return to their home countries after completing their studies, or by issuing employment-based visas that lock people into working for large companies.
Its proposals would modify an immigrant visa that is reserved for people who invest at least US$500,000 in the US and make it easier for high-tech entrepreneurs to set up businesses.
“We want to make it easier for entrepreneurs to come to the US, start new businesses, and most importantly create more jobs,” the group says on its Web site. “Instead of the visa going to an investor, a startup company founder or entrepreneur who receives a minimum amount of private investment could qualify.”
Brad Feld, a hi-tech financier with the Foundry Group and one of those behind the campaign, said progress had been made in recent months — but the proposal had to compete with other heavyweight issues being tackled by the Obama administration.
“Shortly after I started talking to people in Congress about this it became clear that this wouldn’t be a 2009 legislative issue given the massive financial and healthcare reform issues being worked on in Congress,” he wrote recently.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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