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Major Silicon Valley leaders shrugged their shoulders when they were slapped with a new $100,000 fee for new H-1B hires.
While much of the tech world was confused and outraged at President Donald Trump’s late-Friday visa overhaul, Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings said the policy would create “more certainty” for high-value jobs.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC, “I’m glad to see President Trump making the moves he’s making.” And OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was similarly optimistic, saying that “streamlining” the process of getting the smartest people into the US and “aligning financial incentives seems good to me.”
American companies hire up to 85,000 international workers on the H-1B visa each year, so why would they welcome a new policy that could cost billions?
Of course, Big Tech companies have big pockets and can take the hit better than smaller companies and industries like healthcare. Some startups are freezing hiring as they brace for more changes. Supporters of the policy also lauded the simplification of a complicated visa system — it’s now more of a simple pay-and-receive transaction. Here’s the case Big Tech leaders and others within the startup landscape are making for the changes.
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A ‘straightforward’ system instead of ‘lottery luck’
Trump’s executive order appended a $100,000 fee to new H-1B applications to encourage more domestic hiring and prevent what he called program “abuses.” H-1B visas allow highly skilled foreigners to work in the US, and Silicon Valley has long relied on them to tap top talent.
Marvin von Hagen, the German cofounder of AI agent startup The Interaction Company of California, applauded the new, more transactional visa system.
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“Before, the H-1B was just lottery luck,” he told Business Insider — as opposed to being based on skills or values. “I think it’s just the worst possible way to select for.”
A lottery exists because H-1Bs are capped at 85,000 roles every government fiscal year, though the Trump administration has proposed a replacement “weighted selection process” favoring higher-skilled and higher-paid workers.
Von Hagen said fewer people will apply because of the fees, and that a paid system could become more “straightforward” for those who do.
He added that paying a fee for an H-1B may even be preferable to the visa he’s on — an O-1 visa for “extraordinary ability.” Von Hagen said his case to apply for the visa was 600 pages and marked a massive time investment. While it was successful for him on the first try, that’s not always the case — especially for younger founders who don’t have a history of academic excellence to show for.
“Certainty is worth money,” added Ben Nasarin, the founder and general partner of Tenacity Venture Capital.
Nasarin told Business Insider that some pushback around the changes was “massively overblown,” given political polarizations, and said he hasn’t received any inbound from concerned founders amid the changes.
Nasarin agreed that H-1Bs are being overused and said the changes could force founders to consider more US hires. That said, opponents of Trump’s order have argued it could push more jobs out of the country.
Immigration attorneys also see silver linings
Immigration lawyers found some bright spots as they await further guidance.
Immigration attorney Jason Finkelman said that while the changes were largely negative, he acknowledged the fees could discourage IT staffing companies that use H-1Bs to outsource large numbers of workers and force US employers to invest in more training.
Immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn said startups could see silver linings, depending on how the national interest exception is defined — a carveout that would exempt certain applicants who serve national interests from paying the fee.
In addition to potentially making use of these exceptions, Alcorn said the fees could lessen lottery demand and make startups more apt to participate.
“My clients — they’re not sponsoring multiple people. They’re just trying to get one very specific person through,” she said.
If there’s less competition for those lottery spots, they “might feel more comfortable sponsoring top talent for H-1Bs.”
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