I Run an AI Company and I’d Happily Pay $100K for a H-1B Hire

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 34-year-old Shahriar Tajbakhsh, the CTO and cofounder of the AI recruitment platform Metaview, who lives between San Francisco and London. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I woke up around 5:30 a.m. on Saturday in London and saw an email from lawyers with “urgent notice” in the subject line.

We had an employee who was supposed to enter the US in the coming days after their H-1B visa petition was approved earlier in the year. The lawyers outlined President Trump’s executive order issuing changes to H-1B visa rules, including that companies would need to pay a $100,000 fee per H-1B employee.

It was hard to fully understand the situation at first, but I wasn’t particularly concerned. The people we hire create so much value for our company that $100,000 is truly a rounding error.

Our company is looking to expand in the US, and we plan to submit more H-1B petitions in the next lottery. One executive order will not change my belief that an organization’s success or failure is a function of its people.

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I’m relocating to the US to expand our business there

In 2018, a friend and former colleague and I started Metaview together, which uses AI to help recruiters be more productive.

We have so far raised around $50 million. There are between 30 and 40 people in our team: Roughly two-thirds are based in Europe and one-third in the US, but we’re aiming to make the ratio 50/50 over the next six months.

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We started the company in London, and opened our San Francisco office in August to tap into both talent markets.

I’m in the process of relocating there, while my cofounder will lead the London office. I went through the EB-1A visa process, and my petition was approved. Earlier this year, we tried to sponsor three H-1B visas, but only one was allotted in the lottery.

The $100,000 fee doesn’t put me off hiring H-1B workers

Before it became clear that the fee would only apply to new H-1B petitions, large companies advised their H-1B employees not to leave the US and to immediately fly back if they were abroad.

When I first heard the news, my first question wasn’t “What can we do to not get impacted?” but “Where can I pay the $100,000 fee for my colleague?” so they could land in the US and get to work.

As time went on, it became clear that our employee wasn’t affected by the changes. They’re relocating as planned.

In a LinkedIn post, I wrote that people could come work for us in San Francisco instead of moving to another country. It’s all very fresh, and no offers have been accepted yet, but we’ve been humbled by the thousands of candidates who’ve been in touch with us.

The H1-B visa change hasn’t changed our strategy to expand in the US

We spend so much time trying to attract talent, because when you’re building a company, you don’t have everything figured out. Every person who joins our company will be instrumental. A team of like-minded, ambitious people and their perspectives will generate new ideas.

When you sum up the value created by people’s hard work, $100,000 just doesn’t matter. The only way to build anything meaningful that changes people’s lives is to have a world-class team — there’s no shortcut around that. Trying to save money on talent is the most irresponsible thing a founder could possibly do.

We’re planning to make up to 50 hires in the US in the next year, and I expect that we’ll be applying for around 24 H-1B visas in the next lottery. Financially, that seems completely possible to me, pulling from investment. As a company, we spend a large amount of our money on talent anyway, and so far our investors have been supportive.

One of our investors, Jonathan Heilliger, who was formerly an exec at Facebook, reshared my LinkedIn post about the H-1B news, and said many employers are failing the “personality test” that the H-1B changes have created.

It’s too early to tell what the impact of the changes will be

I can imagine that some early-stage companies may need to change their hiring strategy based on the $100,000 fee, but I don’t think we should jump to conclusions about the impact of the changes yet. Some AI and software roles may not even be affected because they’re in the national interest, and the executive order mentioned potential exemptions for this.

It’s very easy to jump to conclusions, but I think it’s important for every founder not to get distracted. I’d rather focus on myself and the things I have control over and wait for more information.

Whether there is or isn’t a fee is not in our control; we’ll make the most of it in either scenario.

Do you have a story to share about taking a career break? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com.