Openness to immigration has long been the core competitive advantage of the United States. Now a new study provides new data on just how much immigrant entrepreneurs have added to America’s high-tech edge. Sponsored by the National Venture Capital Association, it found that immigrants started 25 percent of the new venture-backed companies in
the U.S. over the past 15 years, with a market capitalization
of more than $500 billion, and nearly half (47 percent) of venture-backed companies. Two-thirds of the immigrant founders surveyed said that
current U.S. immigration policy hinders the ability of future
foreign-born entrepreneurs to start American companies.
A story on CNN.com quoted Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, who came to
this country from Taiwan at the age of ten, as saying: "Yahoo would not be an American company today
if the United States had not welcomed my family and me almost 30 years
ago. We must do all that we can to
ensure that the door is open for the next generation of top
entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists from around the world to come
to the U.S. and thrive."
Read the full report here.
November 29th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Important report. Needs to be distributed widely.