The issue is EU salaries (and the subsequent income tax) simply aren't attractive for most Indian, Chinese, and Koreans engineers in the US - the primary beneficiaries of the H1B program.

The only way a European office can attract Asian American talent on a work visa is to offer a salary comparable to the US, just like what the London offices for Google, Citadel, and Bloomberg do.

Otherwise, they can demand EU level salaries in their home market.

For an Indian on an H1B and working for FAANG, the choice isn't Palo Alto versus Berlin, it's the Palo Alto versus Hyderabad, Bangalore, or Pune.

Basically, the H1B change is causing a reverse brain drain back to Asia now now becuase there is an incentive to fully offshore instead of keeping mixed teams in the US.

I know at least 4 partners at the Indian entities of American VC funds already releasing an open call for startups for any Indian American who wants to return to India after the announcement this weekend, or to pair them with their portfolio companies in India.

> These visas look like O-1 competitors more than anything, not H-1B.

Not really. An O-1 is annoying and difficult to process, and does target a different persona than a blue card.

▲

fy20 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Will Indians be happy with that? I live in a European country which used to have a brain drain to the US and the main reasons to go were:

a) Money being much more than you could get in Europe

b) Bragging rights - especially for parents

I imagine for Indians it's something similar?

▲

alephnerd 14 hours ago | parent [-]

Depends on the kind of candidate. The brain drain already kind of started reversing in the 2008-12 period during those layoffs, and Indian tech salaries caught up with Eastern Europe (and the US at the top end of the bracket) by the early 2020s.

A large portion of Indians who came to the US on an H1B over the last decade basically came to the US in order to use the American experience to paper over issues with their resumes (eg. Didn't major in CS, didn't attend an INI, worked at a WITCH) causing their careers to stagnate.

Being in the US still conveys bragging rights, but increasingly the older generations recognize that someone immigrating abroad will basically almost never meet their parents again aside for a couple weeks a year.

As such, the name of the game now is to work in the US for a couple years and then become a PM Director or Director of Engineering at a GCC in India.

Additionally, Indian founders in the US have started considering IPOing in Indian equity markets instead of the US because the tech IPO market is (edit: relatively) dead here in North America (especially if you cannot show $400M+ in revenue) but showing $50M-$100M can guarantee you a $500M-$2B IPOs like Pine Labs' listing a couple days ago. There are at least 25 Indian startups in the process of IPOing this year [0] and the trend is continuing [1].

So for entrepreneurial Indians, the US is slowly starting to lose it's shine.

And finally, as an Indian STEM academic in the US, you can get a $100K public-private startup grant if you move your lab to India, and INIs in India (the Indian equivalent of Double First Class universities in China) allow academic staff to work with private sector players without demanding convluted IP partnerships. Thus, a lot of American-educated Indian academics in India are also becoming angel and seed investors, and have helped guide startups into YCombinator or raising a round from an Accel.

From a European perspective, the best example would probably be the reverse brain drain Poland and Czechia saw in the 2016-19 period, Israel in the early 2000s, and China in the 2010s.

[0] - https://inc42.com/features/indian-startup-ipo-tracker-2025/

[1] - https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/will-indias-i...

▲

nxm 14 hours ago | parent [-]

There were 165 IPOs in the U.S. public markets in the first half of 2025. This was 76% higher than the 94 IPOs in the first half of 2024 and is estimated to be 47% higher than the total number of IPOs in 2024 when annualized for the full year of 2025.

Far from being basically dead

	▲	alephnerd 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I said just for the tech industry, and the multipliers are extremely difficult if you cannot show $400M in revenue. I'd recommend looking at some of Jamin Ball's analysis. And comparing with 2024 is not great, because activity is still well below what we saw before the interest rate hike [0] The IPO window is starting to reopen, but it's still somewhat closed compared to the norm from a couple years ago, and Sailpoint's lackluster IPO has dampened the mood along with CoreWeave's lackluster performance as a public company due to constant misses. A lot of companies are in the process of building IPO readiness, but ime there is still some amount of hesitancy, becuase no one wants to be the first one to roll the dice, but I think Netskope's performance so far might help assuage worries. [0] - https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...

▲

mcntsh 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There’s more to life than money.

I’ve worked for big tech in the Silicon Valley, worked for big tech in NYC, worked for big tech in Berlin. Though I make way less money here in Germany, I’d never move back to the US.

	▲	alephnerd 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The money makes up for being far away from family as well as homesickness. Living in the EU means you are far away from family as well with the added negative that unless you're Vietnamese in CEE and Paris, Fujianese in Central Italy, or Mirpuri in Scandinavia, there isn't a large Asian community in most EU states. If I want Sikkimese, Pahari, Marathi, Chettinad, Maithili, or some other ethnic group's cultural services, cuisine, and/or goods I can always find that represented in American tech hubs. On the other hand it's nonexistent in Europe. I think you're of European heritage, so for you your cultural heritage's goods, services, and cuisine are well represented across Europe. That isn't true for Indians, Chinese (China is not a monoculture), and Koreans. For Indian, Chinese, and Korean nationals on a work visa in the US, you can earn a European salary in the old country while being close to family. This is why Europe is not enticing, because immigration is hard and if the only incentive is to have a lower take home, then there's no reason to go to Europe.