Comment by tomhow

Comment by tomhow 4 hours ago

4 replies

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Please don't post in an inflammatory style or make swipes at the HN community. We don't know what "a large portion of HNers" think about any topic. Controversial topics bring out the people who feel the strongest about that topic, but the people commenting are only a tiny share of the whole community. Your point about the different reactions people have to different kinds of immigration controversies is valid, but topics like this need to be discussed with sensitivity.

Please take care to observe the guidelines when commenting here, especially these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

alephnerd 4 hours ago

I understand, but why is similar moderation not extended when "H1Bs" come up on HN?

To be brutally honesty, why is it acceptable to bash H1B abuse but not B1/2 or VWP abuse on HN. In both cases, it is employers mislabeling and potentially breaking immigration and labor laws, yet it is acceptable to talk derogatorily about those on H1Bs and not on other visas, even though rates of visa misuse are consistent across most large nationalities.

I am of South Asian origin, but I have lived in North America for almost my entire life (aside from 6 months in the old country), but the persistent utilization of "H1B" as a code word for South Asian (primarily Indian) origin tech employees is tiring.

I understand that a lot of ICs are dealing with a significant amount of stress due to the downturn in the tech industry, but there is a nativist current on HN that is starting to morph into anti-South Asian sentiment.

This style of thread comes up almost daily on HN, and is something I have previously brought up to @Dang as well.

It is tiring and demeaning to those of us who are immigrants or the children of immigrants - a number of us who make up a major portion of the tech industry, and have leadership positions in YC as well.

South Asian Americans make up around 2-3% of the US, but almost every post on HN about the job market turns into "H1B"-bashing, which often devolves into bashing people on the visa instead of the companies themselves.

Almost never do I see conversations extending sympathy to those on work visas and also stuck with abusive employers - only nativist bashing that "they took our jobs".

I hope you can moderate these kinds of conversations or update the engagement rules of HN, because HN and the tech industry of 2025 is not HN or the tech industry of 2008.

It is legitimately demoralizing. I worked on the Hill for several years, have advised administrations on how to bring back manufacturing and "American dynamism" (to use the A16Z term), and have built, launched, and funded software products and companies that are used by backbone infra in the US, and even advised a number of YC startups that have exited.

I have done my part for the country, yet to a large portion of HN and the tech industry I and other South Asian Americans will continue to be termed as "H1Bs" until they hear our accent, or if we can pass as some other race or ethnicity.

I would love to have a good faith discussion with you about this, because I do heavily leverage HN and have found it to be a great resource to find technical discussions and have my portfolio companies show share their features, so the toxicity around H1B and work visas in the tech industry is heavily demoralizing.

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  • renlo 3 hours ago

    The distribution of H1B talent is bimodal, on one end is the highly-talented at high wages, on the other end is the mediocre at low wages. In my opinion the highly-talented (which it sounds like you're a part of) are fine and welcome, the latter group shouldn't be allowed because of the suppression of wages and negative effects on domestic labor.

    On your comment of nativism, what do you expect? It's a normal expectation for people who are "native" to a region to expect to be able to access the jobs in their region without needing to compete internationally. The lower-tier H1B workers do suppress wages, it's undeniable.

    On your comment of "moderation", I think what you really mean is that you want censorship because you're conflating people's distaste of the latter "lower-tier" H1B immigrants as somehow being directed at you. It's really not about you if you're as capable as you've claimed. Can you not see how frustrating it would be if there were available jobs in your area but you could not get those jobs because someone with commensurate skills as you (not better skills, the same) is willing to work for half what you need to survive, because they're from abroad, is getting the job instead of you?

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  • tomhow 4 hours ago

    Thanks for the thoughtful response. I understand where you're coming from.

    Our role is not to moderate for or against any "side" in a debate. Our role is to uphold the guidelines, so that anyone with a reasonable position on any topic has fair opportunity to express it.

    My perception from moderating HN for years is that there is generally much more criticism toward companies (including/especially Silicon Valley companies) for exploiting H1Bs than there has been towards holders of those visas.

    But if you see evidence that contradicts that (i.e., comments that are unkind towards visa-holders or that discuss them in any way that breaks the guidelines), you can certainly flag them and email us so we can take a look. We can only moderate what we see and there's a lot of stuff that we don't see.

    If there are patterns or trends of these kinds of comments, then the more you can show us, the better, so we can develop approaches to identifying and dealing with them.

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    • alephnerd 3 hours ago

      Thanks for the kinds words and being open to listen to my feedback!

      > Our role is not to moderate for or against any "side" in a debate. Our role is to uphold the guidelines, so that anyone with a reasonable position on any topic has fair opportunity to express it.

      Absolutely and no argument there

      > But if you see evidence that contradicts that (i.e., comments that are unkind towards visa-holders or that discuss them in any way that breaks the guidelines), you can certainly flag them and email us so we can take a look. We can only moderate what we see and there's a lot of stuff that we don't see.

      I have done so on multiple occasions, but have seen a number of those comments remain up.

      For example, this comment [0].

      Additionally, in this very thread, we have an unsourced comment [1] parroting a common trope, which is legimately false in most cases (and as a member of the YC community, I'm sure you can get this validated), and with significant controversial discussion about this

      I also see constant mentions of Infosys and TCS, but never mentions of massive European firms like EPAM which do similar shenanigans and advertise it to new hires across the CEE [2] or Globant and LATAM [3]. While the Indian firms are large, and it is acceptable to have not heard about Globant, EPAM is absolutely massive and every F100 uses them.

      I can provide more robust data on the general trend, but it is something that would take some time, but I would really really appreciate if the YC employees affiliated with HN do a deep dive into this.

      [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228366

      [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45224087

      [2] - https://www.epam.com/careers/epam-without-borders/usa

      [3] - https://stayrelevant.globant.com/en/culture/globant-experien...

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