Billionaire VC Slams H-1B Visa Fee as ‘Brutish Extortion’
▼ Summary
– The Trump administration imposed a new $100,000 annual fee on companies hiring H-1B visa workers, who are primarily skilled foreign workers in the tech sector.
– Venture capitalist Michael Moritz strongly criticized the policy, comparing it to an extortion scheme and arguing it misunderstands the purpose of hiring foreign talent.
– Moritz contends that companies hire H-1B workers to fill skill gaps, not to replace Americans or cut costs, and warns the policy will push jobs to other countries.
– He suggests expanding the H-1B program or granting citizenship to foreign STEM PhDs, citing successful foreign-born tech CEOs as examples of the program’s value.
– Moritz, who came to the U.S. on a similar visa, expresses personal gratitude for the opportunity and views the program as a success.
A significant new annual fee of $100,000 for H-1B visas has drawn sharp criticism from the business community. This policy, announced by the Trump administration, targets companies that utilize the program to bring approximately 85,000 skilled foreign workers to the United States each year, with the technology sector being the primary user.
Veteran venture capitalist Michael Moritz has launched a particularly forceful attack against the measure. In a recent opinion piece for the Financial Times, the former Sequoia Capital leader did not mince words, likening the White House’s action to a “brutish extortion scheme” reminiscent of tactics from a mobster’s playbook. Moritz contends that the administration fundamentally misinterprets the rationale behind hiring foreign talent.
He argues that companies seek out these workers out of necessity, not to displace American employees or reduce expenses. The primary drivers, according to Moritz, are specific skill sets and critical labor shortages that cannot be filled domestically. He warns that the new financial burden will have unintended consequences, ultimately pushing companies to establish engineering centers in cities like Istanbul, Warsaw, or Bangalore rather than creating jobs within the U.S.
Moritz emphasizes the high caliber of international talent, stating that engineers from leading universities in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and India are often just as qualified as their American peers. Rather than imposing restrictive fees, he proposes a radically different approach: dramatically expanding the number of H-1B visas or offering automatic citizenship to foreign students who earn STEM PhDs from top American institutions.
To illustrate the program’s success, he points to prominent leaders like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai, both of whom came to the U.S. through the H-1B system. Having personally benefited from a similar visa in 1979, Moritz expresses a deep sense of gratitude to the country that welcomed him, framing the current policy as a rejection of the very openness that fuels American innovation.
(Source: TechCrunch)
