Bill Gates was interviewed on NPR today about the limits on the number of H1-B visas issued by the U.S. Gates says the U.S. cannot attract the best talent to come work in the U.S. Microsoft and other U.S. companies are forced to hire these smart workers offshore.

I agree. But so what?

Gates says that ultimately, hiring workers offshore makes the U.S. less competitive.

I disagree.

America will continue to compete through innovation.  The challenge we face is learning how to use this global offshore talent as a resource to implement these innovations.

In other words, you can dream up an application for software without being a programmer. The trick is to communicate with your programmers what the software should ultimately do. This was a challenge even when the programmers were in the same room.  And it still is at many companies.

Companies that are importing programmers using the H1-B visa suspect that they are being trained here and then sent back to the old country where they will continue working but at a lower wage. In other words, they are taking the job back with them.

That seems like a far-fetched scheme when you can hire programmers offshore to begin with already.

To avoid the H1B visa limits, Microsoft has opened an R&D facility in Canada which has no such limits on importing foreign born talent.

Bookmark to: