Instagram, better known as the social media website that can tell stories through pictures, was recently highlighted by a pretty prestigious individual—the President of United States of America Barack Obama to be exact. In a speech today, Obama revealed that adjustments need to be made extremely quickly to immigration laws. In fact, the individual who started this mega site, Mike Krieger, a Brazilian who moved to California in 2004 to study at Stanford University, is one of them.
“Instagram was started with the help of an immigrant who studied here and that stayed here," said Obama in his discussion today, according to Mashable. "Right now in one of those classrooms there's a student wrestling with how to turn their big idea, their Intel (News - Alert) or Instagram into a big business."
Some other notable rags to riches stories highlighted by the Commander in Chief include Intel Chief Executive Andrew Grove, who spent a majority of his life in Budapest before relocating to the U.S. in order to receive a much richer and more well- rounded education. Getting out of a country closely scrutinized by a Communist regime most probably played a role in his decision to skedaddle post haste as well.
Attempting to get a company off the ground when you are also starting a new life in a not so familiar location can be extremely challenging. That is why many start-ups don’t stay in business for very long. For example, Shareaholic raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment and soared over the 100 million user mark. But after the Citizen and Immigration Services refused to let its founder Jay Meattle stay in the country for a longer amount of time, he decided to move back to India with his firm in tow for good.
“It’s not hard to find other entrepreneurs who would prefer to build companies in Massachusetts, but are doing so instead in Israel, France, Canada, or elsewhere because they can’t get visas,” reported Scott Kirsner.
So what are those in the industry suggesting? Something called a “start-up visa” that would essentially enable risk-taking entrepreneurs to gain a sturdy leg to stand on in regards to receiving their green card in a much shorter period of time.
In fact, the first African American President in the history of this country wants to increase the amount of green cards being given to foreign post-secondary graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. In turn, those who then receive these green cards would then fork over a certain amount of money that would go directly to the STEM education and worker training programs in the U.S.