Large FAANG tech companies are largely unaffected, cool.

Yet, I see some startups whining and about this on X and other places.

If you really want to say that you're "hiring the best" or you want to "hire the world class best talent" then you would hire the best american engineers or pay the fee for overseas talent.

No excuses.

I can't for the life of me understand why some startups say "we need skills" and "we only hire the best" then choose a way cheaper talent via H1B overseas rather than train or hire a an Ivy / Stanford recent CS grad.

The Stanford PhDs also need H1B. So now the startups cannot hire them anymore.

What - you expect them to admit they hire the mediocre? Anyway, the labor market is a market like any other - the consumer, in this case the employer, wants to get the best product (labor) at the cheapest price (salary). This isn't complicated.

Looking at this a little more deeply, the biggest issue is American labor is getting underpriced. What's causing that? Well, for starters there's the cost of an American education. The employee is looking at that as an investment and they expect a good ROI.

The second is inflated lifestyle expectations. That's been a big problem in America since the 90s. People aren't just living beyond their means, they're living well beyond their means - and just like the billionaires, they want more.

The result is we have recent college graduates expecting nice six-figure salaries. It's easy to offshore that. The growing trend now is to offshore to South America so you don't have to deal with the time zone shifts. You always have to remember there's someone a wee bit hungrier than you who is willing to work a wee bit more for a bit less. That's the person your employer wants.

This is what happens when you treat people like commodities, and you worship the market and money as your lord and savior.

H1B is a better economic leash than college debt.

Thats all.