Thread: Do Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs?

Interesting article. Based on the number of immigrants, I do think they excel in companies that are in science or engineering especially. Take a look at these stats that I came across a while ago:


According to the studies, in a quarter of the U.S. science and technology companies founded from 1995 to 2005, the chief executive or lead technologist was foreign-born. In 2005, these companies generated $52 billion in revenue and employed 450,000 workers. In some industries, the numbers were much higher; in Silicon Valley, the percentage of immigrant-founded startups had increased to 52 percent. Indian immigrants founded 26 percent of these startups—more than the next four groups from Britain, China, Taiwan, and Japan combined.

These immigrant founders tended to be highly educated—96 percent held bachelor's degrees and 74 percent held graduate or postgraduate degrees, with 75 percent of these degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related fields. The vast majority of these company founders didn't come to the United States as entrepreneurs—52 percent came to study, 40 percent came to work, and 5.5 percent came for family reasons. Only 1.6 percent came to start companies in America.

Even though these founders immigrated for other purposes initially, they typically started their companies just 13.25 years after arriving in the United States. And, rather than settling in well-established immigrant gateways, such as New York or Los Angeles, they moved to a diverse group of tech centers across the country and helped fuel their growth.

Originally Posted by 458

First of all, we are all immigrants if your not native american. Second of all, I live in Miami which is ALL immigrants.

I know what you're attempting to imply, but unfortunately you have no understanding of what an immigrant is. If you were born in a country, and live in that country, you are not an immigrant, end of story.

Where do you think the 'natives' came from? Some history would do you some good.

Originally Posted by 458

Come down to Miami and ill show you what an immigrant is.

I've been many times. Planning on living near there in the future. If a person is born in miami, and lives in miami, then that person is not an immigrant. And yes there are plenty of actual immigrants (in the legal sense) and not in the 'everyone is an immigrant except native americans' sense.

It depends. I am an immigrant born in Bangladesh, lived in United Emirates, and in my early teens, moved to Canada. A lot of immigrants, especially Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, etc. give high value to education so they focus more on medical, engineering, law, accountancy, etc. for their children. The adults tend to be content with working more than eight hours so that the money earned here can make them rich in their original country. Some go as far as owning franchises, but few get into the fastlane.

Regardless of what country you are from, your basic human desires are the same. We all want comfort, safety, security, etc. so only a few will keep investing and learning while most will work jobs, and spend their weekends partying while trying to go to work wearing a mask of professionalism.

Here's something I learned. Once you are a specialist in any field, you still have to take your time and learn more as industry standards change. You still educate yourself and spend time learning for minor pay increases.

Its not skin color, race, nationalilty, or creed.

Its all about values.

some are limiting and some are empowering.

Whats great about living in America is we get to chose which one we want to believe.

Everyone around the world wants to come live here, yet, those who live here complain about how bad it is.

Ah, this thing called freedom. It's a gift and a curse.