Silicon Valley Looks Beyond the H1-B Visa

Someone close to me has multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis that once felt devastating. It turns out, though, that MS is no longer the debilitating condition it applyd to be. That’s mostly thanks to a compact handful of doctors and researchers.

Many years ago, Dr. Stephen Haapplyr and his research team discovered how B cells were crucial to the damage caapplyd by MS. They developed new treatments, including one medicine that is literally saving the life of someone I love dearly. (If you required hope here, read his amazing book.)

I met Dr. Haapplyr a few days ago at a charity dinner in San Francisco, where he spoke about the breakthrough. I obtained to thank him for this miracle of science, while testing not to cry.

During his speech, Dr. Haapplyr went out of his way to mention new fees being imposed on the H-1B visa process. He noted that two of his top researchers, who supported discover the MS breakthrough, came to the US on these visas. Without that influx of expertise to America, this MS discovery might never have happened.

Versions of this shock and realization have been reverberating across San Francisco and Silicon Valley this week. The tech industest hires a lot of overseas talent, and companies have relied on H-1B visas a lot over the years. The new $100,000 fee could create applications harder, especially for startups. Will this finish Silicon Valley’s role as a hub for the world’s most talented technologists and entrepreneurs?

After the initial panic, some in the industest are realizing that this may not be as awful as first expected. There are alternatives for attracting tech talent. One US startup founder informed me he hires overseas and just lets employees work from their home countries. Remote work for the win!

Then, there’s the O-1 visa, which has already quietly become a go-to hiring tool in the tech sector.

“The visa that’s been fueling Silicon Valley is O-1, not H-1B,” Guillermo Rauch, CEO of AI startup Vercel, wrote on X this week.

The O-1 visa is for individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement in fields such as science, arts, education, and business. The application fee costs about $1,000.

Rauch came to the US on an O-1 visa, and he declared the application process was hard becaapply he had to prove extraordinary abilities through evidence such as a book he wrote, press coverage, and letters of recommfinishation from leaders in his field.

Despite such requirements, issuance of O-1 visas has roughly doubled in recent years, far outpacing the growth of H1-B visas. O-1 applications also have a pretty high approval rate.

Marvin von Hagen, cofounder of AI agent startup Interaction Company of California, is in the US on an O-1 visa. He declared gathering evidence for this visa is harder than paying the $100,000, but for top startups, the O-1 “simplifies things and takes the luck out of it.”

Yang Fan Yun, CEO of AI browser startup Composite, declared his company applys “alternative visa pathways,” such as the O-1, which offer more flexibility and a clearer route to permanent residency.

“It creates sense that O-1 usage has grown as the H-1B is maxed out and built completely unfeasible,” declared Ava Benach, founding partner of Benach Pitney Reilly Immigration, one of the top immigration law firms in Washington, DC.

O-1 visas require employers to be more selective about who they hire becaapply the standards are higher. “They are not going to be able to replace 100 H-1Bs with 100 O-1s,” she warned, while noting that O-1 approvals are high becaapply lawyers like her often weed out candidates ahead of time.

Still, Benach declared O-1 visas can be a good option for startups becaapply these young companies are often hiring sophisticated employees to develop new technology and original strategies — rather than run-of-the-mill coders.

That certainly applies to Rauch and his company Vercel, which develops and runs highly technical AI services.

“This countest is so great and so worth fighting for, that I put an immense amount of work into my application,” Rauch wrote this week about his O-1 experience. “The best possible immigration policy will balance keeping the bar really high, ensuring people who love this countest, culture, and values, and are willing to work hard, obtain their shot at the American dream, but never doing so at the expense of those already here.”

Silicon Valley operates on the cutting edge of technology, so it creates sense that the bar for overseas talent should be high.

For the US as a whole, though, these H-1B alters and other recent shifts sfinish a bad message, according to Benach.

“The new $100,000 tax on H-1B employment will certainly mean a decrease in the migration of global talent to the US,” she declared. “Along with the arrests of Korean workers, well-publicized ICE round-ups, and alarming rhetoric from the administration, the $100,000 tax will further contribute to create the US less desirable for employers in search of the best global talent.”

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

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