Bill Gates H-1B Remarks Miss the Mark @ LINUXWORLD — In a scathing and thoughtful piece by Roger Strukhoff, Gates is torn a new one quite elegantly. I won’t be expecting to see Strukhoff at any chi-chi dinners with Bill and Melinda anytime soon.
Excerpt:
With unemployment among programmers at levels that probably exceed 50%, if you count all the “independent contractors” and “consultants” making almost nothing, as well as those who have simply given up and found work in construction or sales, the idea of allowing unlimited numbers of immigrant programmers who will presumably work for below-market wages is going to be controversial. Actually, it’s going to be very, very controversial, unpopular, and ridiculed. Not very smart, Bill.
But I want to take him to task over the words he used, not the idea he espoused. He sarcastically implied that there are those who would not let “too many smart people” into this country. In doing so, he not only damned those of us who might not be as smart as he thinks we should be. He has damned all those American immigrants who might not have had 140+ IQs, but who did know how to work hard, raise families, and make voluntary and positive contributions to society in their precious off-hours.
Bill, alas, has also fallen prey to that great bugbear of “smart” people, the Platonic fallacy. Had he stayed at Harvard just another year, he might have learned about this.
…it goes on
Gates is just repeating the ploy used by those who want to open our borders. If the aliens are from Mexico, they’re not here to steal our jobs, only take jobs no one wants. If they’re from India, it’s the same thing, except they’re here to do jobs we’re not qualified for.
It never occurs to supporters of this position that if American’s do not want to do a particular job, the wages should rise to the point where we are willing. And if Americans are not qualified to perform a job, we should be made qualified.
All this from the sage who famously predicted that 640K of RAM was all the memory anyone could ever need…
If Micro$oft is having trouble recruting people to come to Redwood, then why not open another campus or two. There are a lot of smart people that want to stay in the South-east, Mid-west, or North-East. And I guess there might even be some that like living in the Sun Belt.
My point is, no everyone want to move to the North-west. America is a very large country. Open a branch campus.
He does have a branch campus, in India.