Bill Gates Speaks Out Against Immigration Policies

Jeian writes "None other than Bill Gates has spoken out against tighter immigration policies in the US. According to Gates, the US is losing skilled immigrants to other countries that are easier to immigrate to. Among his comments: "I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.""

Comments

I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Translation- I made billions in this industry, but if you try to work your way up from intern in my company to my level I'll fire you and replace you with somebody who spent 1/10th your cost growing up and getting an education, regardless of skill, because it's better for my bottom line.

With attitudes like this among our upper class, can anybody blame high school kids for not going into computer science?

Every programmer out there who lived through the depression in our industry of 2001-2005 is asking "Where was Bill with these jobs then?", and unfortunately the answer is Bangalore.

I suggest that to change this image, for every H-1b Microsoft hires, Bill Gates donates a $60,000 scholarship to an American high school student to study computer science, or a $50,000 scholarship to an unemployed American programmer to update their skillset and get a higher degree. Then maybe we'll believe what he says on this topic. Until then, he's just lobbying for the Cheap Labor crowd, which includes his own business.

My problem, I guess, is that I just can't bring myself to trust these folks any longer. They'll go for cheap over quality any day of the week- even when it means a 7 year delay in the next operating system only to have a bunch of GUI bells and whistles and no real new fixes or functionality.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[TodMinuit]

Microsoft is doing what they think is in their best interest. Their purpose isn't to justify your education, or try and boost the number of CS majors. Their purpose is not to give you, or anyone else, employment. Nor is that the purpose of any company.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Microsoft is doing what they think is in their best interest. Their purpose isn't to justify your education, or try and boost the number of CS majors. Their purpose is not to give you, or anyone else, employment. Nor is that the purpose of any company.

Exactly right! So why should we change our laws, written by representatives elected democratically, to help a bunch of sociopaths who are just out to get what they can regardless of the destruction they cause to the rest of society? I say we should be disbanding any corportion that doesn't have, as a part of it's charter, a duty to support the citizens of the country that is granting it incorporation papers. It's not worth the cost in lowered taxes to allow such sociopathic systems to incorporate.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[SatanicPuppy]

Typically short-sighted protectionist viewpoint.

Think about it this way...if all the competent people move here, where will all the work be? One of America's greatest advantages is that it's just a damn nice place to live. If you can move here (and thanks to our typically loose immigration laws, you probably can), you will, depriving your native country of your skill, and giving the pass along benefits to the rest of us...Skilled workers immigrating to a country is always a good thing.

The other option is to lock everything down, and say "No new immigrants." What happens then? Do you think wages will go through the roof, and jobs will grow on trees? Or do you think more companies will send the jobs to where the workers are?

Sure Microsoft wants the cheap workers, but, you know what? They can go to where the cheap workers are if they want 'em that bad, and we really don't want that to happen.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[Watson Ladd]

Microsoft's issues relate more to management suffering from a massive case of NIH syndrome and an inability to realize mistakes. They could have taken OpenBSD, put in video card drivers and a new window manager, slapped it in a box and called it Vista for a fraction of the money they spent, and gotten a better product. But they didn't.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[wannasleep]

As much as I don't like Walmart, apparently, there are plenty of people who could get better stuff and pay more at other stores, but indeed they buy the crap from China. Three explanations: it is not so crappy, it is crap with a better quality/price ratio, or Americans are stupid. Which one?

For the same token, getting an H1-B is expensive and frustrating, but companies (usually run by Americans) still go through the hassle. Why? Maybe they can't really get the quality they are looking for, or, at least, not enough of it.

Finally, next time you use Google remember Sergey Brin, born in Russia. Next time you use Yahoo! remember Jarry Yang, born in Taiwan. If you happen to use YouTube remember that two of the three founders are from Germany and Taiwan. Ebay? Pierre Omydar from France. Want me to go on? Feel like checking out the founding fathers? Do you think that Alexander Hamilton was born in the USA? Should Columbus have stayed home? Or maybe do you want to simply understand that foreigners made a great contribution to this country. Whether you like it or not.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[tbo]

I'm not offering any easy solutions, I'm not sure there are any easy ones.

Oh no, your solution is quite easy--eliminate the "corporate veil" and all that--it's just that it's misguided. What you're advocating would eliminate the ability of average people to own stock, and make it the exclusive province of those rich enough to afford all kinds of liability insurance and legal "firewalls" between them and their portfolios.

Think about it--if you're an average joe interested in buying a few shares of company X, how much time would it take you to ferret out any of X's wrongdoings? Even if you knew what to look for and somehow had access to all of the company's records, how long would it take you to sort through all of it? It's basically impossible unless you hire an army of lawyers and accountants, and that's only worth doing if you're planning to invest so much that you can afford take the hit on checking out the company. Even then, you'd probably still want to buy insurance in case you missed something.

Take me as an example. I have a small (2-4k) investment in two gold royalties companies. These companies don't operate mines themselves, but rather buy and sell royalty rights to other mines. They have no direct control over mine operations, but do help fund the development of new and existing mines. Do any of the mines from which they receive royalties do unethical things? Do those mines employ child labor or dump toxic chemicals or prop up evil dictators? I hope not, but I don't actually know. What's more, there's no practical way for me to find out. These royalties companies regularly acquire and sell interests in various mines, many of which are located in different countries, so it's hard to keep up to date. Most of the individual mines don't have websites, and, even if they did and were up to nefarious deeds, I doubt they'd show pictures of children working in cyanide gold leach pools. If one of the companies I own stock in is ethical, and the other is not, I would of course like to transfer my investment to the ethical company, but how can I possibly find out which is which? If I was faced with the possibility of criminal responsibility for the actions of others that were beyond my control and knowledge, I'd have to just exit the stock market. Most other small investors would have to do the same. Big investors would clean up, being the only ones who could stick around.

The logical response would be that companies should hire auditors and external accountants who could provide assurances to investors. Of course, if we have external verification of the company's ethics, why not just directly regulate rather than making investors liable? Bam, you're back to our present-day system, with all its inherent flaws and virtues. The system is not fundamentally broken--it just needs some fine-tuning.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[Omestes]

Wow. Thank you for that. You must be the most hated /.er, btw.

I agree mostly. But some degree of corporation will always be necessary in the modern world. Sure it should be regulated to ensure it remains beneficial to its host society, and it should be taxed so it is forced to support the culture which allowed it to strive and be profitable.

On the other hand we, for some odd reason, have a double standard when it comes to corporations, we legally treat them as individuals, but also treat them as pure capitalist constructs. The boards and leaders of these corporations should be held culpable for their actions, as well as the corporate entity itself.

Oddly I think the libertarians have some degree of a point when they want the economy to be free from government. But I see this in a positive sense, corporations should be divorced from government in the same way religion ought to be, it has no influence over government, but government can still touch its harmful practices. Of course Mr. Gates likes immigration, he benefits from it, but due to our system he has more of a voice than you or me, or most other /.ers or lay public.

Oddly, to go back more OT, I think Mr. Gates is confused. I haven't seen much initiative to reduce legal immigration, and if there is it too is misguided since it is already well night impossible for skilled immigrants to come to the US, especially those from Europe, and other developed nations.

Re:I made billions- but you'll be replaced

[BendingSpoons]

Do those mines employ child labor or dump toxic chemicals or prop up evil dictators? I hope not, but I don't actually know. What's more, there's no practical way for me to find out.

I think what you mean to say is "I don't care enough to try to find out." I don't disagree with the central thrust of your post. Shareholders shouldn't face liability for their corporation's actions. However, I can't believe that a publicly traded company has no mechanism for finding out which companies they're dealing with. What you're really saying is that it's not worth the hassle to find out if your stock money has a little blood on it.

Here is what I saw when I read your post: "I invest in GoldCo. GoldCo may or may not deal with some of the worst, exploitative elements of humanity. However, it would be quite an undertaking to find out what sort of mining companies GoldCo deals with, and then look to some NGOs to find out these mining companies' reputations. And I'm just trying to make a little money here." That mentality is a complete abdication of social responsibility. That sort of apathy, that unwillingness to see where your money is actually coming from, enables some horrible activities when it transfers to a large scale.

I'm not trying to beat you down with a burst of self-righteousness here. I just think that stockholders wield a bit more power, and have access to more information, than you give them credit for.

tell us what you really think

[illegalcortex]

Bill Gates's public statements on immigration are about as credible as his public statements on Google's business plan. The man has a history of boldly lying when it suits his business interests. Why would anyone seriously consider his claims on this topic?

How does this make math a good career choice?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm perplexed at Bill's thinking here. He apparently doesn't think US students are getting enough math and science or are going into that field. So his solution is to bring over endentured servents for a fraction of a US worker's salary to make up for the slack.

What's a smart college bound kid going to do? Go into math and science when he's competing against people that will always work for a lot less than he wants to make, or go into law and become an ambluance chasing attorney?

And to top it off: Bill wants a technical solution to this company's incomptence in hiring people and getting into markets. Bill your stock price is flat not due to that you don't have the best C++ coder that knows how to make recursive data structures, it is because your business model is outdated and you don't have anything exciting in the pipeline.

Course this is rational behavior for someone who can't continue to run his business: say "look our problem is X and if only you let me do Y I would still be making money in the stock market"

Re:How does this make math a good career choice?

[LibertineR]

A smart college kid would choose a career based on what they love to do, rather than on money, or they just are not a smart kid to begin with. It makes no sense to destroy your life doing something you dont want to do, because the odds are, you will suck at it and be a failure anyway.

Do what you love, or suck at anything else. You could end up being better than others, but never as good as you could be at the thing you love to do.

Re:How does this make math a good career choice?

[aeoo]

Bingo.

Money is irrelevant. Money is only relevant when you love 2 things more or less equally and there is a large difference in income between them.

If you hate plumbing and you get into plumbing to make money...yea, you'll be a shit plumber who will make his own life miserable and lives around them as well! And in the end probably get a bum rep and never get another plumbing contract.

Do what you love. It's the only thing that makes sense. The same is true after you're hired. You gotta do what you love regardless of what management tells you to do, because following orders against your nature won't help neither you nor your management.

Fuck him

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

It's alright for tech workers and engineers to have their wages depressed by opening up the borders meanwhile the MBAs, lawyers, physicians and such are under no such threat. If you're going to open up the floodgates at least make it equal opportunity.

Shortage myth

[Supercooldude]

Every time I hear someone complain about the "desperate shortage of skilled programmers" I want to punch him in the face. To see how false this is, all one needs do is look at the extremely low percentage of recent comp-sci grads who can find work as programmers. The majority of them have to work in some semi-technical job such as tech support, or in some cases can't find jobs in the computer field at all. When I graduated, it took me 8 months to find a job, meanwhile the entire time so-called experts were claiming a desperate shortage of programmers and demanding an increase in the H-1B quota. The problem is that employers too often have ridiculously specific requirements. Ten years ago, a typical job ad would say something like "C++ programmer needed, with 2 years experience". Today, a typical ad requires "6 years Java experience in a commercial environment, 3 years J2EE web-based development, Swing, JSP, Servlets, EJB, XML, DOM/SAX, advanced knowledge of application servers (primarily Weblogic and WebSphere), Advanced knowledge of database connectivity and integration. (Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server). And when they can't find someone with /exactly/ the skills they're looking for, they complain about a labor shortage. They don't realize that a skilled C++ programmer could become productive in C# in a very short amount of time, because these are transferable skills. That would be like Chevy refusing to hire a skilled Ford mechanic. It just doesn't happen in any other field but ours. And if they absolutely /have/ to have someone who meets those exact requirements, then they could find him if they offered a high enough salary.

Re:Shortage myth

[Philodoxx]

And every time I hear somebody complaining about graduating with a CS (or equivalent) degree and complaining about not being able to find a job I want to punch him in the face. Accredited does not equal skilled! Some of the people in my graduating class are complete morons but they still have a piece of paper that says they are just as skilled as I am.

Depression my ass

[ucblockhead]

The job market for software people in 2001-2005 was little different from the job market in 1991-1995. What changed was that people entering the market during the boom thought the boom was normal.

I was part of interviews in 2004...trying to hire a software developer. A majority of "software developers" who applied couldn't write a goddamn recursive function in the language of their choice. 2001-2005 was not a "depression". It was the market returning to normal after a period where any warm body got three competing offers.

Re:Cheap labor vs Skilled labor

[Tackhead]

> Which do we really need here in the US? Do we really want highly skilled immigrants to fill highly skilled jobs, or do we want cheap labor that will do the jobs no one else wants to do? Are kids who grew up here complaining about losing construction/landscaping and migrant farm jobs to immigration?

Which is what makes US immigration policy so infuriating.

Apu Packofsix wants to come over from Bangalore and write software. He can come as an H-1B, he can't change jobs while he's here, and his H-1B expires in three years. Then he can renew once, and he can stay for three more years, after which he has to go home. Since he's making between $50K-100K, his employer might like to keep him around, but his employer isn't in the business of breaking the law. So - he's only got six years here, he never puts down roots, and after six years of making $20K/year in taxes off him, he gets kicked out.

Jose Seispack, on the other hand, sneaks across the border in the dead of night. Makes $3/hour picking berries. Has an "anchor baby" at the earliest possible opportunity. Stays indefinitely, sneaking back across the border within a few months, should he be so unfortunate as to be caught and deported. Consumes about $10K/year in government services, indefinitely.

Joe Sixpack? Well, Apu was forced to go back home after his six years were up. So when Apu starts his consulting operation in Bangalore, guess what happens to Joe Sixpack's engineering career?

Thanks, Politicians. Thanks a fuck of a lot.

I'll grant that a population consisting of a lot of highly-educated engineers is lot harder to rule than a nation of xenophobic Joe Sixpacks and happy-to-get-$3/hour Jose Seispacks, but that's about the only win I see for the government: There's no other conceivable rationale (economically or in terms of tax revenue) behind the current system of discouraging a few hundred thousand highly-skilled workers from coming to America, while simultaneously encouraging millions of low-skilled workers to show up.

Maybe it's time for Atlas to shrug. If America doesn't want its high-tech immigrants, maybe they should take the hint and all go home, where they'll at least be allowed to be productive. And if America doesn't want its own high-tech citizens either, maybe we should take the hint and go where the action is.

The problem isn't just in the computer industry: does anyone seriously think the next generation of biotechnicians and gene-hackers is going to come from America's educational system? Anyone? Bueller?

Shortage of *cheap* labor

[cfulmer]

If Microsoft wanted, it could announce that it is going to start their engineers at $200K/year and it would get more than enough qualified applicants. Or, it could hire marginally qualified applicants and train them in the technologies it wants. In fact, were Microsoft to start paying that rate, it would not take long before the market were flooded with qualified engineers. More people would switch to Computer Science and more universities would open up comp. sci departments.

The problem is not a shortage of American high-tech labor; it's a shortage of cheap American high-tech labor. Gates' concern is not that he can't find engineers in the U.S.; it's that it's cheaper for him to hire engineers elsewhere.

I suggest that the reason that fewer people are going into Computer Science is that they see how software companies treat their engineers. How many software engineers lost their jobs between 2001 and 2004? If the market for good engineers were as tight as Bill Gates suggests, those people should have been gobbled up in an instant. Heck, companies would have been hiring them, knowing that they'd be needed eventually.