While in Europe the sentiment of defense towards migrants is progressing among the population, elsewhere the opposite is happening. It must be said that if the context is not the same, the mentalities are not either! An idea for Christian Estrosi and his operation of the Plaine du Var which is still waiting to start?
At least, that is what Silicon Valley is proclaiming, outraged by the small number of visas that the US administration grants (the Department of Immigration has published its figures: 233,000 applications… for a quota of 85,000 visas).
Not only is the valley lacking programmers, but it has also known for a long time what it owes to immigrants. A 2012 study shows that a quarter of American tech start-ups were founded by an immigrant (born outside the US), and in Silicon Valley, this percentage rises to 44%.
And are these start-ups successful? Consider this: LinkedIn (24th in the Top 25 Tech), founded by Konstantin Guericke (German immigrant), eBay (9th), by Pierre Omidyar (French immigrant), Amazon (6th), by Jeff Bezos (son of Cuban immigrants)…
What about the Top 3? IBM (3rd), founded by Herman Hollerith (son of German immigrants), Google (2nd), co-founded by Sergey Brin (Russian immigrant), Apple (1st) founded by Steve Jobs (son of a Syrian immigrant).
Moral: 60% of the 25 largest high-tech companies in the US were founded by immigrants (“1st generation”) or children of immigrants (“2nd generation”).
Not too bad!
