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The billionaire tech investor David Friedberg thinks the debate around whether “privilege” determines success misses the point — and says immigrants who succeed in Silicon Valley are proof.
He made the argument in response to an X post by The New York Times finance columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, who quoted the former British politician and Meta executive Nick Clegg as saying: “If you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
“I was almost stopped in my tracks by that line in a profile of him. What do you think? I’m very curious,” Sorkin asked, referring to Clegg.
Friedberg, the CEO of the agri-tech company Ohalo, replied: “I’d argue you’re too easily moved by the choice words. ‘privilege’ and ‘equality’ are selected because they confuse the notion of fairness.”
He then rephrased the quote: “If you’re accustomed to succeeding due to hard work, ingenuity, risk/sacrifice, and, sure, some amount of luck, having the outcomes reset so that everyone is rewarded more equally feels unfair.”
Friedberg argued that framing equality as something in opposition to privilege is pointless because, for him, equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are two different things.
“Silicon Valley’s most successful are the immigrants who found America as one of the only places on earth where an individual with zero baseline privilege can struggle and sacrifice and effortfully succeed,” he added.
“Calling them privileged after the fact seems hardly the point,” the South African-American entrepreneur wrote. “But an easy one to make.”
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“I don’t think we disagree,” Sorkin responded on X, adding: “The real challenge is preserving incentives for effort and achievement while making sure the floor is high enough that everyone can at least get on the playing field.”
Friedberg’s comments come amid uncertainty about the future of the H-1B visa, which has helped up to 85,000 skilled foreign employees find work in the US each year since 2004, including in Silicon Valley.
The visa has divided the MAGA movement, with some Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk seeing the benefit in attracting highly skilled workers, whereas the Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X in August without providing a source: “End Indian H1-B visas replacing American jobs.”
Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta are among the tech giants most reliant on the visa program, according to US government data, with Amazon making 14,783 H-1B filings in 2024.
Indians are granted the largest share of H1-B visas. Some Indian visa holders previously told Business Insider that their life in the US now feels temporary and unstable as they’re unsure whether their visa will continue to be supported.
Ohalo did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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