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Fed H-1B Visa Probes May Help American Engineers
In the future there may be no more Wozniaks and Jobs because middle class families such as the ones they came from will no longer exist in the numbers necessary to foster the development of that sort of talent and insight. Their heroes were Hewlett and Packard, guys who had started a business in their garage. Now the kids will all just want to make the next twitter, get zillions at the IPO and retire on their private islands rather than create a great and influential company. I, for one, am looking forward to our future as an impoverished third world country ruled over by a tiny uncaring elite and a ruthless police state. I have always enjoyed visiting these sorts of places, now the experience will be coming to me! That's fortunate since I probably won't be able to afford travel or vacations in the future anyway.— February 19, 2012 8:08 p.m.
Fed H-1B Visa Probes May Help American Engineers
Hmmm, it is worse than I thought but still they are nothing compared to Qualcomm: Qualcomm - Market Cap $105B, 6812 applications 2001-2011, average salary $101,446 Apple - Market Cap $468B, 2570 applications 2001-20011, average salary $121,415 Apple's market cap is more than 4X Qualcomm's yet their H-1B applications are nearly 1/3 of QC's. Also the average salary at Apple is higher but maybe that's just the Bay Area distortion. Also keep in mind that you're not going to see a lot of the real numbers because many of the workers are going to be from Wipro, Tata, Infosys and the like on L-1s as well as H-1Bs. Many companies (not Apple AFAIK) are using tons of these people, that is mostly what I am seeing here -- not direct hires but contract employees through one of the big Indian body shops.— February 19, 2012 7:49 p.m.
Fed H-1B Visa Probes May Help American Engineers
Nothing is going to change. The offices I see around here are just filled wall-to-wall with kids from India. They all have master's degrees in EE and CS and resumés filled with all the latest buzzwords yet 99% of them can't answer basic questions about the technology they've been brought in to work on. While some are certainly able to do coding most of them have huge holes in their knowledge at a fundamental level. Frequently the "fixes" they implement are just patches or workarounds that hide the underlying problem which they either aren't able or willing to dig and find. There are some great ones in the groups I see but they are few and far between. All of the managers are under pressure to just hire wipro or infosys contractors because they have friends in high places in these companies. I don't know if there are kickbacks involved, it may just be the good-old-boy system in operation. Often a Duh-merican will be put in a "lead" role having to manage a team of H-1B contractors. The project always ends up being late and full of bugs, and the Duh-merican gets laid off while the H-1Bs stay and the next Duh-merican patsy is placed on the dunk tank chair. Most of these companies importing tons of H-1Bs and doing all of this outsourcing are just falling apart. They are rotting from the inside, unable to innovate or create and just barely hanging on while hemorrhaging cash and being pilfered by their crooked boards . Meanwhile Apple is cleaning the floor with the entire industry and they barely use any outsourcing or H-1Bs. I love it! I could care less at this point, I have been watching this for 20 years, it just makes me laugh now. I advise everyone in decision-making positions in the tech industry that I talk to to outsource as much as they can to India as fast as possible. If they are stupid enough to listen to me (and they always are) they deserve what is going to happen to them. I am going to really enjoy seeing all of these middle-managers and immigration lawyers out begging for jobs once the US tech industry has been completely eviscerated and we are demoted to the third world status that we deserve. Listen, I have nothing against these Indian kids, heck I like 'em! If I were in their shoes I'd be doing the same thing. But their motivation is totally different than the motivation of guys who create great companies like Apple. The H-1Bs aren't in it because they love their work, they are in it for the $. Guys like Steve Wozniak would be soldering boards and writing code even if they weren't getting paid for it -- heck he probably still is! I have never met one of these Indian kids (and I've known hundreds) like that. They are just doing what they have to do to better their situation -- and good for them! Strip-mine this rotten dump and send it to the trash-heap of failed empires where it belongs.— February 19, 2012 3:38 p.m.