If you think immigration is a big issue in tech right now, just wait

Episode 5 — The Immigration Debate Is About To Get Worse [iTunes, Google Play]

In many ways, Amr Awadallah is the embodiment of the American Dream.

Originally from Egypt, Awadallah immigrated to the United States in 1995 with hopes of becoming a professor. But while working toward his Ph.D. at Stanford University, Awadallah caught wind of the incredible growth of the technology industry right in his new backyard.

He stopped going to school to focus on starting his own company that was later acquired by Yahoo. Thanks to both the J-1 and H-1B visa programs, he was able to work in the U.S. until he obtained his Green Card and eventually his U.S. citizenship. 

Some 20 years later, Awadallah is the co-founder and CTO of Cloudera, a data and machine learning company that employs 1,600 workers with a market cap of $2.24 billion on the New York Stock Exchange.

“You can say that Stanford corrupted me,” Awadallah said with a laugh. “I forgot about this noble teaching thing, rather let's focus on entrepreneurship and creating companies.” 

The ability for immigrants like Awadallah to come to America and become a business owner employing thousands is now under threat. President Donald Trump is pursuing several policies that will limit the use of the H-1B program, a key visa that tech communities use to bring in talent from outside the U.S. Trump has also been highly vocal about a self-proclaimed travel ban on several Muslim majority countries, a proposal that was recently blocked by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The tech community argues that if the United States does not remain an open place for immigrants, their ability to compete on a global stage will be compromised. Yet American workers across the country remain convinced that stricter immigration policies are necessary to ensure both safety and job security. How can we close the giant chasm between how the middle of the country views immigrants and the tech community does?

“We will hire the smartest minds from the U.S. if they are in the U.S., but they are not,” Awadallah said. “There isn't enough supply in the country. We will fight politely, we will fight very, very hard to our last breath to make sure that we can continue to have access to the smartest minds. We know that that's what will make us succeed or fail.”

On this episode of Work In Progress, LinkedIn Managing Editor Chip Cutter and I sit down with Awadallah to get his take on this issue. We talk about his own rise in Silicon Valley and the tech talent crunch that makes immigration a top policy priority for his peers across the industry.

But the conversation really heated up when we started to discuss how the automation of work is only going to make the immigrations issues we are discussing today an even bigger problem in the future.

“The implications of [automation] in my mind are a lot more significant than us worrying about immigration and hiring tech minds here or there,” he said. “The most important aspect of your life going forward will be your tenacity to learn and evolve… If the US wants to stay on top of their game they will need to be able to access these people. To take that away, you will lose. You will fall behind.”

Listen to this week’s episode to find out where our conversation went from there and let me know what you think in the comments.

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