There is correlation between corporations making expensive headquarter buildings and corporations going down. For Apple 5B is pocket change, but still, …

Facts:

1. Because of H1B program, number of clever people going to STEM studies is less (they chose more profitable professions where job market is better protected – lawyers, doctors, etc.) . Long term it has devastating effect on USA competitiveness in high-tech.

2. High-tech companies are abusing H1B program. Minimum amount of time H1B person from India or China couldn’t change company is 8.5-9 years (6 years on H1B, then it applies for Green Card so it is automatically extended, and 2.5-3 years to come to 2nd phase of Green card process where person could change company without starting process from beginning – but still loss 1 year in this process so in reality it is ~10 years). For those 10 years, those people are underpay for at least 30% or more. At the end of this period, company replace 80-90% of them with new H1B guys and keep the best 10-20% (and pay them properly). Also H1B quota became a joke and big companies are paying politicians to get around it. Lot of high-tech giants keep big % of overall workforce on H1B visas.

3. USA couldn’t produce enough clever people to work in STEM fields. Some import of clever people is necessarily.

4. In USA, technology knowledge is moving between companies with people changing jobs. In other countries companies are much more protective of their knowledge. Unfortunately, compartmentalization and need-to-know basis is more and more standards in various high-tech companies. Nobody is publishing anything worth of reading anymore. Open-source is still alive, but it is question mark until when. That has bad side-effect that people are learning slower.

5. Moore low is at the end, benefits of each new chip generation is diminishing. That means that companies good at copying (Chinese companies) will have enough time to catch up and replace everything with cheap technology clones. It is becoming harder and harder to pay for development of new technology.

Put all of this together and it is clear that there is no simple solution.
First think I would do is to limit % of workforce for each company (including contractors) that could be on H1B visa. Also to set overall compensation to at least 150K/year to ensure that really best people will come. Find a way to penalize companies in which high % of former H1B people leave after getting papers.
Limit number of imported STEM people at the level (and guarantee it will be the case long term) that will make it competitive for very clever people vs. other professions.
Find a way to utilize all clever people as much as possible (especially women that are equally talented for STEM during school and then % of them become smaller and smaller on graduate and post-graduate studies).

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