Last week I was interviewed by the Denver Business Journal for an article on the StartupVisa Movement. Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) – who represents the district in which I live – was also interviewed. Kevin Mann – the founder of Take Publishing (one of the TechStars 2009 companies) and a UK citizen – talked about his story. Good – and important – stuff – Polis wants foreign company founders to be allowed to stay in United States.
Eric Ries also put together a short two minute video describing the issue and highlighting Eric Diep, the co-founder of Quizzes (a very popular early Facebook app). The Eric’s explain the issue around visas for founders of companies and talk briefly about some of their activity on a recent trip to Washington DC.
As each day passes, I continue to get a steady flood of positive feedback and constructive suggestions about this from a wide variety of people. Thanks to everyone for engaging in this important conversation.
Feel exactly the same way as Eric Diep, that the dream of creating wealth, jobs and innovation in America seems so close yet impossibly far away. There are so many international students, self-selected to come to the United States to study, invested in by educators, who want to build successful and sustainable companies, and yet cannot. It is just so up-side down.
Comment by Foreign Student Entp — October 4, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Is there any data on how many entrepreneurs would US VCs commit money to (over the last 1,3,5 years), but couldn't due to the visa problem? How much VC money was left uncommitted as a result (and how many jobs not created as result)?
Comment by Mohan — October 5, 2009 @ 1:47 am
I haven’t found a credible source for this data at this point.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 5, 2009 @ 1:49 am
I haven't found a credible source for quantitative data. Qualitative / anecdotal data suggests that it's a meaningful number.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 5, 2009 @ 1:51 am
Is is fair to say that In the absence of credible quantitative data, we might need to position this to the govt as "the US needs to make it easier to import IP and create jobs" ? And justify how universities and corporations are not effectively doing this today?
Comment by Mohan — October 5, 2009 @ 2:27 am
No. There is likely appropriate proxies for this data. I imagine that as the policies start to get shaped, we’ll be able to put some substantial data behind it. In addition, the qualitative data is overwhelming so it’s not hard to paint a clear picture from it.
It’s not a case of universities and corporations not doing this effectively as it’s not a “zero sum game.” I believe we are nowhere near the boundaries of what we can handle in this country.
Comment by Brad Feld — October 5, 2009 @ 2:35 am
Good Wizard Found! Thanks Rep. Polis.
Comment by vidli — October 21, 2009 @ 1:01 am
Originally, there were two versions of the show. ,
Comment by Red41 — October 22, 2009 @ 3:27 am
[...] StartupVisa Video and Congressman Jared Polis Comments (feld.com) [...]
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