On The Whole H1B Debate

Things are starting to get really ugly out there

For those not terminally online - there has been a fiery debate on X (formerly Twitter) about H1B visas that was spurred by the appointment of an AI advisor - Sriram Krishnan - to the new administration. The debate turned ugly when new DOGE head, Vivek Ramaswamy posted a controversial post covering the shortfalls of American culture (I do not endorse his point of view).

Tensions have reached a boiling point, with overt racism being directed at Indian tech workers (I'll spare you the browsing and share an example below).

I thought I'd spend a moment sharing my family's immigrant story and how it ties into what I think is the greater vision for America.

My dad moved here in '67 to study a very specialized field at the time - he was very technical and couldn't further his studies in India based on what was offered in those days. He was the top statistics student in his class and left his family with their entire life savings ($100). He was the youngest child in his family, and took a chance on America leading him to a better life. Eventually, he and my mother moved here in '71 together and settled into Northern California. While growing up in NorCal, I met folks like DJ Patil, Ryan Panchadsaram, Prakash Janakiraman and countless others.

It was in CA where I was born, along with my older sister. My sister went on to become a scholarship D1 athlete, and a broadcast journalist. I went to high school in Ohio - an all-boys, predominantly-white prep school called University School. Since then, I've been a serial tech entrepreneur and investor with some other stops in the industry along the way.

I have to believe that my parents' outcome is what America wants out of immigration policy. They didn't come here with the thought we should leave after a year. They built here. My cousins who moved here are building here and love this country. Sure - we have our own Indian communities that we interact with, but we have built real roots here across many communities. I have to believe this is the America our Founding Fathers envisioned.

The idea that Indians, or any other ethnic group for that matter have malicious intent to 'replace white jobs' is disingenuous. We want to build here, and support America in whatever capacity we can. We love this country. Equally unhelpful is the discourse that we are ‘skilled labor’ here to do engineering jobs. We are not breathing machines for our fingers to type code, and I don’t think the tech community advocating for us in that particular way is helping.

I hope the online discourse about Indians' intent to 'replace white jobs' dissipates. Indians, like any other ethnic group, view America with awe and aspiration. We are not machines whose parents deprived us of 'Saved by the Bell' as Ramaswamy suggests on X. Instead, we want to help America maintain its technological advantage (or whatever other field we contribute to) for decades to come.