I worked for a couple of very "household name" big companies as a tech lead. I trained probably dozens of H1Bs over the past 15 or so years. I've seen it all. I decided that I would help anyone who wanted to improve their skills regardless of their origin or employment status, and that's what I did. I got mistreated terrible at times, in particular by a Venezuelan woman, but generally speaking, I helped raise the bar for a lot of people who maybe otherwise would have been ignored because big companies don't care about training people at all. As I look back on what my career was, I think that all the informal mentoring I did was probably my biggest contribution. I just wish it had turned out better for everyone involved. I saw a lot of absolutely heartbreaking situations arise over the years. And now my situation is kind of heartbreaking as well. We were all in this together, but nobody spent a single second thinking about that.
as an American who worked in Silicon Valley for years, but is not from there, i'd say it's also "captive real estate customers" created by H1-B people.
I once asked an (American) director where i worked just this question.
He said what you surmised: while there are plenty of qualified American engineers in the United States, citing Motorola headcount reductions as an example, it was a challenge to convince them to move to California's cost of living.
Seriously. All I needed to do to be filthy rich was move to Silicon Valley back in '97 when I got my MS, then eventually have bought a house or two out there. That's it.
To recap:
1. Move to the Bay Area circa 1997
2. Buy houses
3. Profit enormously in the 2020s
Exactly. It's not about talent at all. It's about using the strong arm of the government to give large multinationals an advantage in the tech market. Total grift and corruption!
