Visas
This article came in via my news reader this afternoon. Its nice to see that xenophobia is alive and well in the software industry. The article is a reaction to a interview Bill gave to a columnist for the Washington Post where he supported raising the cap on H-1B. Bill wrote an Op-Ed to this effect last weekend as well.
The writer had some problems with the starting salary Gates mentioned but that was fairly debunked in the comments. (Bill was including the cost of benefits.) His main theory was that Gates was making up the labor shortage as a way to import more cheap foreign workers. Keeping down the wages for all software developers. He of course ignores the fact that many of these foreign workers have just received graduate degrees from fine American intuitions.
Immigration is a complex subject and it’s hard to find a source of information that does not have an agenda behind it. It seems too easy to me to blame this all on the foreign guys down the hall. Interest in math and science is dropping, there is a shortage of talent, and I think the reasons go deeper then just the pay.