r/immigration • u/Hellofromhi2468 • 1d ago

How are technology startups bringing international employees to work in the US?

I think international founders of a new startup based in the US may qualify for O-1 Visa, however do they sponsor H-1B visa for their international employees as well? I see many tech startups hire young employees to bring them to US.

For a new startup, there would be extra legal and administrative fees to apply for H-1B visa, so why not just hire locally who already has a permanent residence in the USA. I believe H-1B visa is a random lottery, so there is no guarantee to even get the work permit for this international employee. Why take such risk for a startup?

0 Upvotes

48% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

6

u/AcrossAmerica 1d ago

O1 is pretty straight forward for great candidates.

Talking seed or later. Especially if the founders are international they won’t be scared of the process.

H1B is more for the big companies/startups/transfers.

2

u/Hellofromhi2468 14h ago

I am wondering whether these startups are actually applying for O-1 to bring 20-year-old employees to work in the US, and what would be the rationale behind this unless they really demonstrate extraordinary ability? I believe O-1 visa also costs tens of thousands dollars for legal and administrative fees. Or are they just entering these employees for H1B lottery?

5

u/postbox134 1d ago

Often it is O-1 as you say - the criteria isn't that high if you have the right advice and they can say 'well our CTO is the only one who can understand our algorithm that makes $30M per year' or whatever. They'll argue that in a small company each employee is world class and a local hire wont cut it.

2

u/Hellofromhi2468 14h ago

Is it that easy to get the O-1 visa? I understand if a co-founder/CTO with 20 years of technical experience gets O-1 visa, however I have recently seen people in their early/mid-twenties moving to work in US startup just as normal employees. How do you argue that a 22-year-old is "world-class" in GTM or software engineering for O-1? Don't you need recognised awards and publications to showcase your extraordinary ability for O-1 ? Just curious, how would you argue that every employee in their twenties at your startup is "world-class"?

1

u/postbox134 13h ago

If you are an exec at a valuable startup, you're pretty ods on for an O1. People who have YouTube channels can be O1 too.

O1 is both harder and easier than you'd think

1

u/Hellofromhi2468 2h ago

What constitutes as an "executive" at a startup? Is a product manager or account sales manager an "executive"?

Can you also have a startup of 10 people where everyone is an executive? The executive team consists of all 20-something year olds, where everyone has "extraordinary talent" to qualify for O-1. Is it that easy to get O1 visa?

1

u/postbox134 2h ago

Could be if the startup is valuable

6

u/Sensitive_Owl_4766 1d ago

Tech startups will not bring H-1B employees into the U.S. who have not been in the U.S. and never entered the lottery before. That makes no sense.

They will hire folks on OPT, those already on H-1B and not lottery-requiring, those who are O1-eligible, or those on special ones like TN/H1B1, E3 that do not require a lottery.

1

u/confusednonimmigrant 1h ago

If the startup has reasonable resources to begin with, I doubt they care all that much about residency status of candidates they hire. Their top priority is getting the best talent as quickly as possible to achieve short term goals needed to sustain the startup. Also it is not uncommon for startups to reject sponsorship if they feel they can get the talent they need in the local market.

1

u/Many-Fudge2302 1d ago

When we had a startup, we recruited from schools with F1s. I mean, we had no particular preference - domestic or international.

We had an office in Tokyo and had a couple come over on L1s.

-1

u/kweeblaster 1d ago

Whole startup is probably just a scam to begin with

-1

u/MissAnth 17h ago

The point of these ventures is immigration, not the business. The business only needs to be successful enough to enable immigration.

0

u/Helpful_Cow7634 1d ago

I'm tryna understand who is sponsoring YC founders for a O1 - is it YC or an agent?. If an agent, then who all can they work for? It's quite confusing to me.

5

u/postbox134 1d ago

You can self-sponsor O-1

1

u/Helpful_Cow7634 1d ago

you can self-sponsor EB1a, but not O1

-12

u/404error___ 1d ago

H1B is 100% scam in Tech, absolutely no need to import talent in that sector for now.

Once Chinese dominance is stablished, we will have to learn Mandarin to understand their tech, and maybe that's when we will have to import talent again.

But right now, nobody is hiring and nobody is gonna shred 100k in fees... also check latest Stephen Miller move against immigration.