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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34285 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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All the H-1B workers I've met at FAANG were great

Honest question - how many of us have to endure the consequences of the rampant abuse so that FAANG can get their Good Ones? What's the break even point at a societal level?

Good question, can you quantify the consequences of rampant abuse?

I have some ideas, but this isn't an exhaustive list. That said, maybe it's a useful starting point.

  • Fresh grads having limited prospects because entry level jobs are filled with H1-B holders, despite those fresh grads existing and ostensibly being qualified.
  • A culture that rewards regulatory evasion at the corporate C-level
  • Having to personally do extra labor to un-fuck the work done by unqualified H1-B holders who probably wouldn't be here if their sponsors weren't able to treat them as de facto indentured servants.

I'll try to reply to the first point since the other two aren't really quantifiable.

I think currently the new grad situation in tech is predominantly caused by two factors: over-supply due to A LOT of recent CS grads and AI having a disproportionate impact on the lower tier of tech jobs. H-1B has always existed and I've not seen evidence that companies are hiring a lot more than they did several years ago. So new grads are mainly not finding jobs right now due to an over-supply issue and AI rather than competition from H-1B.

However, I'm not saying that just because H-1B's impact on new grads is limited, we shouldn't try make their experience better by fixing it. I recognize this is a problem. As you may notice in my first comment here, I advocated for a sliding tax that specifically targets the lower compensation band that will improve new grad's competitiveness against similarly skilled H-1B applicants.

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