Got a Start-up? Get a Visa

There’s an important immigration initiative percolating in Congress. And it's one that might even escape an acrimonious debate.

It’s a proposal by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to award green cards to foreign entrepreneurs. It works like this: you enter the country with a great idea and $250,000+ in start-up capital from a U.S. investor. After two years if you provide full-time employment for at least five people, raise $1 million in additional financing or generate $1 million in revenue, you get a green card.

It’s a job-creator visa proposal. A smart and practical idea to ignite innovation and create employment.

After all, it’s brains AND capital that drive innovation.

One only has to look at Silicon Valley to see how immigration shapes U.S. innovation. More than 52% of the region’s technology companies were started by immigrants. And a quarter of all U.S. patents involve an immigrant inventor. It certainly helps to have great Universities cultivating a continuous stream of international entrepreneurs. In fact, almost half of Stanford’s graduate engineering students hail from outside the U.S. And while influential voices are calling for a green card to be stapled to every graduate’s diploma, many students choose to apply their learning and talent back home.

As opportunities grow for entrepreneurs in their countries of origin, the U.S. becomes less alluring. So it’s more important that ever to find practical ways to keep them coming with their inventive ideas. In California the appeal is still strong. Even within my own small portfolio of technology start-ups, immigrants far out-number native born CEOs. For example, of five client CEOs that raised capital from Silicon Valley investors in the last 18 months, only one is native-born. Two are Irish, one is Iranian and the fifth is Chinese. They are scientists and engineers ranging in age from 30 to 64. Between them, they employ more than 150 Americans. And of course they’re inventing phenomenal technologies.

Detractors call the visa proposal a poor deal for entrepreneurs. They argue that the threat of deportation makes failure more of a risk [the antithesis of how failure is viewed in Silicon Valley). Some believe that it gives investors too much power. They've got a point. But I can't see that dissuading ambitious foreign grad students or passionate inventors with big ideas. The kind of smart individuals that compel investors to engage and inspire talented Americans to join their team.

Their DNA tends to contain a high tolerance for risk.