There are a bunch of issues with the proposal, but hey:<p>#Let's say someone comes over, starts a company with $500K and it fails. Then what? Legally, they would have to leave at that point, right? If not, why not? Brad says no, they just have to found another company. That makes me squeamish; while they may be working for themselves, it's not that different than bonding to a trade.<p>#How many founders can you bring over for one company? What's going to stop them from setting up a consulting shop instead of a product company? We've seen that consulting jobs are very clearly 1-to-1 displacement of American citizens.<p>#There are a lot of issues with the verification of "bona fide founder" status. I get that VCs are OK with being gatekeepers (yeah, I plead guilty for my one year on the dark side), but it's really distasteful to hand over any part of immigration to non-government officials. More here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=556908</a><p>#The pro arguments now are based on anecdotes, not data. There is no data on how many jobs we're "losing out on" by not having a more founder-friendly immigration system.<p>#Lastly, there's a solution that works right now: find an American co-founder. It's not pretty, as you have a distributed company in the early days, but it works.<p>I acknowledge the intelligence of the tactical decision to give up on H1-Bs and go after changes to the EB-5, but America would <i>be a better place</i> if we actually reformed the H1-B process. I do wish Brad, Eric, Dave, etc. would tackle the H1-B elephant in the room publicly. We shouldn't be trying to steal startups from other countries; we should be trying to cultivate an environment where everyone here legally - citizens and immigrants on their path to citizenship - can start one and have it thrive.<p>Also, and everyone's heard me on this before - this group would do a lot more for startups if they channeled this energy into healthcare reform. Job lock-in is real and affects many, many more potential startup founders than immigration policy. VCs/investors from outside SF/NY (<i>cough</i> Brad Feld <i>cough</i> Josh Kopelman <i>cough</i>) would especially be credible, useful voices on a matter that's actually front and center right now.