Why Forbes Says Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs

An anonymous reader writes "Romanian emigre Christian Gheorghe is running a Silicon Valley software company now (Tidemark Systems) after getting started in the U.S. hauling plywood on a construction site. Forbes summarizes his path to the top and sees a wider story about immigrants' edge as entrepreneurs."

Comments

How is this a representative sample?

[dorpus]

The story dwells on one person's story. There are any number of people (both Americans and immigrants) who take any available job and try to work their way up, but opportunities never appear.

Re:How is this a representative sample?

[jeffmeden]

The story dwells on one person's story. There are any number of people (both Americans and immigrants) who take any available job and try to work their way up, but opportunities never appear.

The story is a story? OMG! Let me spell this out for you, in case you missed the first paragraph of TFS: immigrants represent twice their share of the entrepreneurial population, and the path of Christian Gheorghe is at least slightly representative of the background that immigrants have that might cause them to become entrepreneurs.

The real "gotcha" here isn't that "oh well people in the US can do that too;" it's that unsuccessful would-be immigrants typically either never leave their home country (willingness to move internationally is a pretty obvious proxy for other ambitions) or they end up moving back to their native land if things don't go their way in the US. In other words, in order to make it as an immigrant you basically NEED to follow the entrepreneur's path.

Ultimately what this means is that there is a creaming effect on immigrants, the "best and brightest" of other nations seek out the US to make a life and name for themselves and the process of doing so separates the wheat from the chaff. This is a process that really should be encouraged (along with home-grown entrepreneurship) because what it ultimately means is that innovation is still strong(est) in the US leading to many obvious benefits.

Re:How is this a representative sample?

[NeutronCowboy]

On the other hand, it nicely illustrates the dangers of self-selected samples. The article focuses on smart people with a specialized body of knowledge who decide that anything is better than their shithole, and are willing to start from scratch in a better place. That decision alone requires guts, determination and a willingness to fight. In other words, successful immigrant entrepreneurs have a special personality profile and skillset that is less common in the general population. Shocking. Next, Forbes will tell us that immigrants arriving in the US with no special skills, no special education and a habit to segregate themselves in their ethnic community will be more likely to be and stay poor than the average American.

There's a reason Forbes isn't taken seriously in the business world, and it's articles like this.

Re:How is this a representative sample?

[mr1911]

...but opportunities never appear

There is your answer.

It is about making your own opportunity. The guy in the story could have taken the same job as his father had and waited for an opportunity to appear, but he wouldn't be where he is.

There is nothing fundamental about immigrants making their own opportunity other than many of them took a giant leap of faith to gamble what they had to build their fortune in a new country, much like many entrepreneurs gamble what they have to build their business.

Re:How is this a representative sample?

[kiwimate]

I think you nicely illustrate the poing of the post to which you're responding. Your post gives far more insight and interesting discussion about the reasons why immigrants make better entrepreneurs than does the Forbes article. The Forbes article says nothing of substance.

There's another post just below here, which also has way more salient commentary than is contained within the Forbes article:

People who are forced to learn a new language and culture are rewarded with a huge advantage in people skills. As most of us know, financial success is 90% people skills. (I recently saw a study reported by Forbes that concluded exactly that, even though I had assumed it for years.)

Some career executives are smart, and some not so smart, but they all have one thing in common: top-notch, world-class people skills. It is people skills that gets you to the top.

Re:How is this a representative sample?

[Aceticon]

I think a little quote from the GP explains a lot:

who take any available job and try to work their way up, but opportunities never appear.

You see, the thing about emigrants is that they are not satisfied by staying within the system they know, going for the steady plod up and hopeing that luck will land them with a big opportunity. The passive way never works unless you're born in the right family with the right connections.

Immigrants go out there and make their own way: they seek or maketheir own opportunities. After all, this is the kind of people that is willing to leave their own country, their family, friends and all that they know to go to a far away place where even things like unwriten social norms are different - starting your own company is a far easier endeavour.

The reason I know this is because I'm one of them and, not so long ago, after 3 countries and 7 years as a freelancer in IT I started my own Startup. I look around in the startup incubator where I'm based (Google Campus in London) and most people in there doing the same as me are foreigners too - in light of what it says in this NYTimes article, the abundance of foreigners now makes sense to me.

(PS: the GP's posture kinda reminds me of a friend of my who is an actrice - a profession with high unemployment - whose acting career goes nowhere preciselly because she keeps waiting for acting gigs rather than being out there promoting herself and looking hard for new opportunities)

Another misinterpretation of data

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, being an immigrant is, in itself, a filter. Leaving your native country for better opportunities is a strong sign of entrepreneurship. When will journalists learn?

duh

[Anonymous Coward]

It is self selection. Immigrants are not risk adverse and are self motivated pretty much by definition. Both skills lend them selves to starting a business.

They have it backwards

[timeOday]

Immigrants are a self-selecting group. It's quite obvious that an entrepreneurial individual would be more likely to do something risky and ambitious like immigrating to another country.

Notion of the American Dream

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it's relevant, but I can see the point.

Imagine you're an Immigrant. New country, new opportunities. The place you come from is a real hole and at every turn you see econmic prosperity. I'd be excited if I got to get my hands on things I never had access too before. If had a good vision, and I knew that nothing but hard work was between myself and success? Damn right I'd be sucessful. That is the problem with being an Entrepreneur. Having an idea is about 2% of your key to success. The other 150% is hard work. Really really really hard 100 hours a week endless work.

The problem with being here, in the land of opportunity is that we're saturated in it. We lose perspective.We don't know what's really important and we lack the motivation to find out.

Which is why...

[Glasswire]

Canada, the most similar economy to that of the US, does so well economically in part because it's had a huge tradition of immigrant entrepreneurship for decades.
Whereas the immigrant xenophobia in the US leads to incidents like a senior manager at a foreign car plant getting arrested for not having the right paperwork. If you treat foreign investors (who could put plants elsewhere) like that, what does it say to someone thinking of moving to the US to start a business?

success is contextual

[luis_a_espinal]

My own experience is that "lucky breaks" come to those who seek them out and are willing to take risks, and under the right conditions, can capitalize on them.

Colonel, if you feel you haven't gotten your share of "lucky breaks", maybe you ought to try harder. It's amazing what can be accomplished if you try.

TFTY. Not to knock your argument, I agree with it. But I think in the form you presented, it is incomplete. You need an innate talent, and a drive to seek the opportunity. And the lucky break (which in great part is a factor of society and government), and then being at the right economic period (up or down depending on the nature of the lucky break), to capitalize it.

Coming from a dirt-poor country that was plagued for much of its existence by warlords, generalissimos, nepotism and a lack of the rule of law, you can work your ass off and be the next Sergey Brin/Einstein and still never get anywhere (if you are lucky, or robbed/killed at worst.)

Being in a developed country where the combination of government, the rule of law, society with developed institutions and a robust economy (even when in a recession), that gives you a fair, fighting chance AND the ability to mingle with like-minded people, AAAAAAAAND the opportunity to reap benefits proportional or greater than the effort put behind the plow.

The combination of all that is what makes success (and recovery from failures) a possibility.