india

Startup Visa – Should you want one?

Startup visa is a recent proposal from Senators John Kerry & Richard Lugar. The origins of this proposal can be traced back to some prominent angel investors and venture capitalists. If you have been reading techcrunch.com recently, you probably saw a lot of discussion on the related posts from Vivek Wadhwa.

Most of the discussion on startup visa, that i have seen, centers around the value of such visa for american economy. I am an immigrant into this great country and i can see both sides of the arguments. I have seen how H-1B program has immensely contributed to innovation in technology field and consequently spurred growth in US. I have also seen how this program has been (and continues to be) abused by employers to bring cheap – and often untalented – labor into US.

My main purpose here is not to add to that debate. Instead, I want to look at this visa from the viewpoint of a foreign worker/student in USA who is looking at this as a potential opportunity to obtain a green card. Is this better than sticking with current employer and get green card through them? When should one opt for a startup visa?

First up, a deeper look into the proposal and some details

  1. The minimum round the company has to raise is 250K.
  2. The minimum PER EACH FOUNDER should be 100k. This means, that if you have 3 founders all seeking greencard, they have to raise atleast 300K.
  3. The wording says “a qualified venture capitalist or a qualified superangel investor has invested not less than$100,000”. It is unclear if the entire 100K has to come from only one investor. Let us hope not. I think this will be clarified.
  4. In exchange for giving an entrepreneur a green card, the expectation is that their “commercial activities create not fewer than 5 new full time jobs in US”. I am assuming that the inherent assumption here is that these jobs are not h-1b jobs :). What is unclear is how they plan to decide which jobs are attributable to which founder. If there are 3 founders, should they create 15 jobs? If so, what happens if they create 13? Which of the 3 founders loses their green card?
  5. Next, the expectation is that they would raise 1M dollars in follow on financing in 2 years or generate 1M $ in revenue.
  6. Lastly, if this startup doesn’t do too well, by the end of 3rd year, they  are obligated to terminate the green card.

So, you are a H-1B worker at google, yahoo or salesforce.com, and you have a brilliant idea. Should you try to raise money and go for a startup visa?  I can envision several scenarios which this visa does not address. Usually such scenarios means that USCIS would define them later. This is often unpredictable and can change rapidly based on a lot of random factors. Just look at how h-1b workers are treated today by USCIS. Folks stopped in Newark airport and questioned for compliance! Here are some scenarios

  • If your company gets acquired in a year, what happens? back to h-1?
  • In case your company fails, how many days/months do you have to find a new job and change visa status?
  • Are you allowed to do other jobs while on this green card?
  • If there are 3 founders and let’s say the expectation is that the company creates 15 jobs. If the company only creates 12, you could be the one that is left high and dry.

Overall, this seems like something that’s great on paper. This has been drafted from the view point of a VC/Angel.  At this point it seems way too risky to opt for permanent residency through this channel. I would say NO, donot pin your hopes on this visa. Getting a green card through a steady employer might still be your best bet.

Seperate state for telangana?

The fire has been restarted – separate state for telangana region of Andhra is once again a top of the mind issue for all telugu people across the world. People who argue for/against the state should really keep some simple things in mind – in my opinion.

  1. A state is really an administrative region in a country. Being a telugu person, or andhra telugu person, or telangana telugu person, in addition any other attribute one may associate with themselves (for example, telugu, andhra brahmin, male or female, engineer or doctor or business person, chowdary or reddy, indian, human) should not really matter which administrative area you live in. One’s identity is fully intact whether you live in india, andhra pradesh, telangana, united states etc. To that end to carve out states based on some sort of regional binding attribute would seem rather arbitrary. What if all the kaapus (or any other group) in andhra demand a separate state? Is their claim valid?
  2. The first statement is not against telangana. I am just saying it is not important whether telangana is a seperate state or not for a person’s identity to be preserved. So there is no reason why folks should be offended that some (or all) telangana people want a state of their own. It is indeed ok. Having 2 (or 3) telugu speaking states would not make telugu any less of a language, or telugu people any less entrepreneurial, adventurous, resourceful or any other great qualities we are known for.
  3. Agitating for Samaikhya Andhra (united Andhra) feels like yelling or screaming at a brother/sister/partner who wants to live a separate life. Whether one is right or wrong (may be being separate is better or being united is better), screaming at the other party is not going to help the cause.
  4. Tantrums should not be the reason for getting rewards. Seems like this is one rule most/all parents agree with. However, this is exactly what the indian government keeps ending up with. There seem to be a lack of genuine process for civil discussion, organized process, and voting to achieve these sizable goals. There are no provisions for referendums. Decisions are handed out by AICC president, who – if i may point out – is a not a representative of andhra pradesh, not a member of central or state govts. To achieve something sizable, the process seems to be to first get sizable people mind share (this seems right) win a few elections ( this seems right), wait for some higher power to approve (this is broken), and if they don’t approve “agitate” (this broken).

Full Disclosure: I was born to coastal andhra emigrant parents and spent 20 years in hyderabad since birth, before emigrating to United States. where I have been living for the last 19 years.

I am hoping that the future will be for the good for the next generation no matter how the regions end up.

Slumdog Millionaire

his week, after about 6 months – we (me&madhu) went to a movie in the movie theater. We heard so much about Slumdog Millionaire, given that this is set in india and supposedly an uplifting love story. Time magazine, Roger Ebert, and every other movie review i read was very positive. I saw jay leno show who was gushing about how “beautiful” the slums and slum folks are/were.

When the movie started, i was shocked how “real” the movie was. All movies/showbiz dress up reality. It is hard to believe that a UPS delivery man lives in a 2 story independant home in chicago or the sometimes unemployed friends can afford a spacious luxurious multi-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. Bollywood movies too dress up “slums” in india. Whether it is “Company” or “Satya” or “Kaho na Pyaar Hai” or any other indian movie, Poor folks in india seem to have decent, spacious apartments, clean, crisp clothes, nice hair & teeth, gorgeous bodies. Danny Boyle – for the purposes of this film – focused on the real real slums in india. So the movie’s initial segments focus on the slums, the dirtiest and trashiest parts of the slum specially. I have not seen another “real” view at the not-so-pretty parts of india since Salaam Bombay.
As the movie follows the early life of these two slum kids, the situations they face very harsh and shocking. All the scenes are shot with extra touch of cruelty and harshness. Even the brief moments of levity this movie provides are hard to laugh with. This is indeed the life (or very cloe to) of thousands of kids in India. It was very disturbing for us and what ever the uplifting part of the movie was, it seemed moot and trivial. I am not sure what has been bothering us more, the way this movie is shot, or the realization that this movie is not that far from the truth.
Everytime i remember that Jay leno called the slums and this movie “beautiful”, i just feel worse. What was beautiful about the challenges these kids are subject to ? I guess it is the way to justify the joy one feels (if one feels any joy) at the conclusion of the movie.
While danny chose to be “real” about depiction of the slums and the kids, he definitely chose to be bollywood about how the movie ends.