Immigrants have not only founded big, well-known companies. Foreign-born residents made up just 12.5% of the U.S. population in 2008. But nearly 40% of technology company founders and 52% of founders of companies in Silicon Valley.
Yet we don’t seem to care. We send recent, foreign-born university science and engineering graduates back to their own countries after their student visas expire—unless these creative sorts are willing to spend some of the most entrepreneurial years of their lives working in a big company under an H-1B visa after they finish their studies.

Paul Kedrosky and Brad Feld: Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy - WSJ.com (via nonolet)

No, I’m pretty sure the winning strategy is to gather the best and brightest from around the world, further educate them, and then kick them out. That seems to be the formula, right?

(via crazynutjob)

In July 2008, Tim Nicholson was let go from his job at a property management firm. According to Nicholson, his dismissal was due to his beliefs about man-made global warming. Nicholson calls man-made global warming “the most important issue of our time” and believes that “nothing should stand in the way of diverting this catastrophe.” This led to “frequent clashes” with his co-workers over his concerns. For instance, Nicholson, out of concern about excess CO2 emissions, refuses to fly. He objected when the firm’s CEO flew someone from London to Ireland to retrieve his Blackberry.

When he was dismissed, Nicholson sued under Britain’s Employment Equality act, specifically the part that prohibits discrimination on account of “religion and belief.” According to Nicholson, “Belief in man-made climate change is…a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values.” For its part, his former employer countered that “green views were political and based on science, as opposed to religious or philosophical in nature.”

In what’s being called a “landmark ruling,” a British judge ruled for Nicholson, saying that “a belief in man-made climate change…is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose” of laws covering discrimination in employment. The judge’s ruling opens the door to the possibility of employees suing their employers “for failing to account for their green lifestyles, such as providing recycling facilities or offering low-carbon travel.”

Theoretically, an employer could say “I need you in Helsinki by tomorrow,” to which the employee could reply, “Too much carbon, we’ll have to aim for next week, since I’ll be going by bicycle, train, and boat.”

The possibilities are, as advertisers say, endless.

Breakpoint: Global Warming As Religion

This is NUTS.