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▲ ben_w 3 hours ago

Do you know what stops Microsoft from building an office in, say, Czechia, hiring all the same people who were previously able to get a US work visa/green card/etc. but are now unable to, for the same labour, and paying Czech rates rather than US rates?

Nothing. Nothing, past tense, stopped them: they already have an office there.

▲paimapi 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Outsourcing happens but larger firms repeatedly run into the issue that management, admin, and local talent provides diminishing returns. Most of the larger US-based firms have standards that are built on decades of developed industry practices, something that can sometimes be missing from outsourced workforces on a cultural level. Hiring in domestically at least plants folks in environments where they can learn those processes over time. I suspect this is one (amongst many) reasons why US work visas are so single-employer contingent - you don't want talent you trained from the ground up to be able to easily leave for another role somewhere.

▲sokoloff 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s not outsourcing. It’s off-shoring, which is (IMO) quite a bit easier and something that a lot of companies are fairly successful at.

▲ffsm8 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Outsourcing is not new, yet they haven't done it to date. you cannot seriously think that visa are the only reason why they didn't to date, or do you?

▲ben_w 35 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Outsourcing is not new, yet they haven't done it to date

I didn't say "outsourcing", outsourcing is where you have a different company do the thing (who may or may not be in the same country).

What I am describing is "offshoring" (specifically where it's the same company, though this is not strictly necessary for the word "offshoring").

> yet they haven't done it to date

  As of June 30, 2026, we employed approximately 223,000 people on a full-time basis, 121,000 in the U.S. and 102,000 internationally. Of the total employees, 89,000 were in operations, including product support and consulting services, datacenter operations, and manufacturing and distribution; 77,000 were in product research and development; 43,000 were in sales and marketing; and 14,000 were in general and administration. Certain employees are subject to collective bargaining agreements.
- SEC filing, MICROSOFT CORPORATION, for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2026, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/0001193125263...

i.e. 45.7% of their staff never even needed a US visa, green card, or HB-1.