1. Immigrants are a minority
2. Yet immigrants found %50 of +$1B companies according to this article.
3. My hypothesis as to why this is so is because they are ambitious educated people, even though they might be very poor when they arrive.
You notice a similar effect in schools. School performance is mostly dependent on the actual quality of the kids and the parents. High skill immigrant parents probably emphasised schooling and quality parenting a lot more than the low performing kids and thus you get a similar effect with high skill immigrants.
It's why you see so many high performing 2nd-generation asian kids, even though the parents started as very poor people from some starving village in china. The parent's tiger parenting style lead to elevated outcomes for them and their kids.
As far as refugees, that is why you have different visa categories, to reflect different immigration policies for different situations. High skill immigrants who are ambitious and found companies are a different separate thing than refugee immigration policy.
The reason why people conflate the different kinds of immigrants is because it's easy, even though there are many different kinds of immigrants.
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As to why I said disadvantaged average american, is because america is a 1st world country with a 3rd world country inside of it. Compared to it's neighbor up north, there is significantly more violence, social inequality, rotting ghettos and uneducated poor people even though canada has an even more liberal immigration policy than the USA. The average american is probably less skilled and motivated than the average high skill immigrant.
Also adversity acts like a people filter. The people who can get through adversity and still thrive are usually pretty amazing people. It also can make you stronger than a person who lives a soft life.
My original comment is that the 50% of point #2, which is based on this report, is a meaningless number.
Suppose each company had 10 co-founders, and 1 of every co-founder was foreign born. Then by the definition from this report, 100% of all companies would be founded by an immigrant.
Wow! Those immigrants are ambitious to have started every single one of the companies!
Now comes a new report, based on the same data, that says "Immigrants are 10% of founders but 15% of the population". Something's wrong - immigrants are underrepresented as founders. Are they lazy? Discriminated against? Do they face too much adversity?
So, two reports, one which says "foreigners started 100% of all companies" and the other "foreigners are underrepresented as founders", both base on the same data, but giving very different interpretations of the data.
I believe this report was deliberately structured to present the sound bite that "50% of $1B+ companies are founded by immigrants" so that people like you would think it's meaningful. Without knowing the overall founder population, you cannot make a strong conclusion one way or the other. This report does not give those numbers, nor does it make it easy to figure them out myself.
Hence why I say it's a propaganda piece meant to influence people who don't have the time to dig into policy wonk details. Like you.
The rest of your comment unfortunately continues the ill-informed anti-poor and anti-minority viewpoint that I pointed out earlier by adding racist stereotypes.
It's why you see so many high performing 2nd-generation asian kids, even though the parents started as very poor people from some starving village in china. The parent's tiger parenting style lead to elevated outcomes for them and their kids.
As far as refugees, that is why you have different visa categories, to reflect different immigration policies for different situations. High skill immigrants who are ambitious and found companies are a different separate thing than refugee immigration policy.
The reason why people conflate the different kinds of immigrants is because it's easy, even though there are many different kinds of immigrants.
---
As to why I said disadvantaged average american, is because america is a 1st world country with a 3rd world country inside of it. Compared to it's neighbor up north, there is significantly more violence, social inequality, rotting ghettos and uneducated poor people even though canada has an even more liberal immigration policy than the USA. The average american is probably less skilled and motivated than the average high skill immigrant.
Also adversity acts like a people filter. The people who can get through adversity and still thrive are usually pretty amazing people. It also can make you stronger than a person who lives a soft life.