<story><title>On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/27/on-immigration-engineers-simply-dont-trust-vcs/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>sosuke</author><text>Just on the subject of programmer salaries, I was talking with someone who had much more experience in the computing industry than myself and he pointed out something I&amp;#x27;d never known. He said that programmer salaries from pre-bubble days was six-figures, and that we&amp;#x27;re still in that range, and not higher is proof that salaries have been kept low. Six-figures today is not what six-figures was worth in 1998. Inflation alone from $100,000 1998 to 2014 is $144,877.91 using &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.usinflationcalculator.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.usinflationcalculator.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And yes, I don&amp;#x27;t trust anyone who cries foul about a shortage of workers and then offers 40% under market wages, anecdote of course.</text></comment>
<story><title>On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/27/on-immigration-engineers-simply-dont-trust-vcs/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jacobolus</author><text>On one of the previous threads about this topic, someone suggested that accepting H1-B applicants in order from higher to lower salaries instead of based on a lottery would clear up a lot of the lottery spots that currently go to the below-market-wage-indentured-servant type shops to be used for more deserving companies and applicants.&lt;p&gt;Seems like a solid change to me, without an obvious downside. (But I am not an expert and haven’t done any detailed analysis, so maybe this would have negative consequences I’m not anticipating.)&lt;p&gt;Another change that might be a big improvement, it seems to me, is to let H1-B visa holders more easily change jobs once they’re here, without so much risk or paperwork hoops to jump through. If it were easier for H1-B workers to switch jobs, then abusive employers would have less leverage to exploit them (forced overtime, below-market wages, etc.).</text></comment>