FYI, I am the employee mentioned in that post and your statement is just hilarious.
Obviously, a young French guy with disposable income, no dependents and earthly possessions that fit in a large backpack and a suitcase is not representative of the majority of H1B workers but the specter of deportation is not very scary to me. The last two times were just opportunities to travel.
It starts to become more relevant when you start to make more ties, and realize you might suddenly be yanked away from your new friends (and possibly SO).
I'm certainly not saying it's the motivation in every case - doubtless it is often about costs and sometimes genuinely about talent.
Don't get me wrong, the terms of the H1B are pretty terrible but that should not detract from Yuri's point that quotas and other immigration restrictions have a serious impact on smaller companies' ability to hire the best employees.
Similarly a lot of people talking about salary are missing the point. Sure, there might be more candidates if the salary offered were higher but even if they had the right skills (and that's a big if) they might not be a good fit for the team.
I know mentioning "culture fit" may attract a lot of flak but consider this: if a candidate cares more about the salary than the product and the team then even if they're incredibly skilled they risk being detrimental to the company as a whole. I've seen what the world of finance looks like through some friends and it's not pretty.
Sure, I don't think I disagree with any of that. And don't misunderstand me, either - I think the power dynamic of the H1B can be damaging; I'm not opposed to immigration generally.
dude, it's just a job. You're not making the world a better place. You're building slightly better corporate file sharing. That's it. It's a dropbox or box or btsync competitor tuned for corporate clients.
And it's just a job. Not a mission.
People jump out of bed to go skiing, or cure cancer, or research fundamental physics, or to practice medicine, or to help the needy, or to help animals, or to put a human on mars, or for 1000 other reasons.
Not to steal a point of marketshare from office 365.
But I do think I see why aerofs has trouble hiring.
I don't recall claiming to make the world a better place. We've changed our focus since I joined and to be honest I was more excited about the original vision but I'll take corporate file sharing over online advertising any day.
Then again, I'd take life as an itinerant purveyor of french toast and fine liquors over online advertising so I'm hardly representative of the average person in this "industry".
I value coworkers whose company I enjoy and who genuinely care about making customers happy. There's a wide spectrum between detached paycheck collector and over-invested lifer that fails to notice anything outside of work. I have nothing against people on either end, it's just not the kind of work environment I'm looking for.
I don't think culture has been a major issue for us when hiring. I merely brought it up as a counterpoint to the "just raise the salary" argument which strikes me as disingenuous.
