Opinion
Kim: US Will Lose Long-Term by Restricting High-Skilled Immigration
“If we rest on our laurels, I am a strong believer and advocate that you lose in the long run because you just have atrophied in the culture and in what we stand for.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kim: U.S. may lose default destination status for global tech talent
“Like, it is not necessarily going to be the case that the US continues to be the default destination when every other country is now catching up.”
Insight
Top lawyers avoid immigration law because corporate law pays significantly more
“If you are an extraordinarily talented legal professional, Your incentive is not necessarily to go into immigration because you will probably earn a lot more going into corporate law or contract managed negotiation, and so immigration tends to be made up of a …”
Opinion
Kim: US Bureaucracy Blocks Global Tech Talent From Entering or Staying
“And we have this singularly bureaucratic process that keeps them from being able to either come or stay.”
Assertion Partly supported
Over 780,000 applicants registered for just 65,000 U.S. H-1B visas last year
“And so you think about last year, same 65,000 spots, 780,000 people registered.”
Opinion
The uncapped O-1 visa is America's best-kept secret for tech talent
“And the quote unquote, like hack right now is actually, there's a lot of categories that already exist, but they're only used by like, 10,015 thousand people every year when really they're uncapped. And actually, if more people knew about them, they can self S…”
Disclosure
Kim: Lighthouse aims to 10x the number of approved O-1 visas
“We want to 10 X the number of people getting a ones approved, because there's no reason why there are 65,000 people getting H one B's and only 10,000 people getting a ones.”
Opinion
Hollywood mastered O-1 visas for foreign talent, but Silicon Valley hasn't
“Hollywood figured out something that Silicon Valley did not, which is you get really, really talented people from overseas and how do you help them have work authorization and be able to stick, stick around in the country for long enough. And so the O is super…”
Insight
Minn Kim: Talent agglomeration effects create virtuous cycles hard to replicate
“Agglomeration effects are real, like on an economic basis where once you have a dense population of really smart, highly educated or productive people, That tends to have virtuous cycle effects where more really talented, productive people want to be there bec…”
Opinion
San Francisco suits the ambitious and weird; New York suits the cool
“Oh, the SF hype never went away. I think it is a deeply, deeply special place. And if you are ambitious and weird I think this is, like, San Francisco is, like, the perfect place for that. If you're ambitious and cool, I think you live in New York.”
Assertion Supported
Only 10,000 people apply for O-1 visas annually, mostly non-STEM talent
“Right now there are 10,000 people who apply roughly every year and only less than half of them are what you would call stem talent, like individuals with technical degrees.”
Assertion Partly supported
Kim: USCIS premium processing guarantees O-1 visa decisions in 15 days
“Depending on the visa category, so for like something like an O, you pay, you know, a couple thousand dollars to the, to USCIS, and it means you are guaranteed an outcome within 15 calendar days.”
Opinion
Kim: Silicon Valley should adopt New York's blasé attitude toward celebrity
“I think there's a distinct Way in which New York handles, like, celebrity and fame that is, like, a bit more blase and, like, a bit more, like, not a big deal, like, cool, you're still a human. And I think probably Silicon Valley could borrow a little bit of t…”
Assertion Supported
The U.S. hit its 65,000 H-1B visa annual cap by 1997
“In 1990, we said, okay, we will allow 65,000 of them a year. And the trouble is that there are many, many more people. There's like over demand than there is supply. And so the cap, which is 65,000 H one B's every year in. 1997, if I remember correctly, basica…”
