Category: Government
Two of the public policy things I care about are patent reform and immigration reform. I believe our patent system – especially with regard to software and business method patents – is completely and totally broken. And our immigration system – especially concerning immigrant entrepreneurs – is an embarrassment.
There is suddenly a lot of focus and attention on both of these issues. That’s good, and I’m hopeful that it will result in some meaningful positive changes. It pains me to see other countries – such as Canada, the UK, and New Zealand – be more progressive, open, and forward thinking around entrepreneurship and innovation than the US. There are days when I’m discouraged by our political system, but as I’ve gotten older and spent more time with it the past few years, I’m getting to a zen state of not being discouraged, but rather accepting the reality of the process and just being consistent and clear about what I think is important and how to fix it.
On the patent front, Twitter recently finalized a powerful approach – the Innovator’s Patent Agreement (the IPA). With this, they’ve agreed – as a company – to only use their patents defensively. I think this is extraordinary leadership on Twitter’s part. Our government and the USPTO is not moving aggressively to fix a problem that is now stifling innovation in the software industry, so leaders in the software industry can, and should, take matters into the own hands. As Fred Wilson describes in his post today, the IPA is an incredibly clever and forward looking approach. I’m proud of my friends at Twitter for providing this leadership and I encourage entrepreneurs and investors to understand the IPA and consider applying it to their patent approached.
On the immigration reform front, today is the second to last day of the March for Innovation. Go to the March for Innovation page to tell your Senators how important this issue is and read what a bunch of tech leaders are saying on the Mashable March for Innovation page. If you want just my thoughts, you can go read them at Broken Innovation Shutters Innovation.
Last week TechStars London was approved for the UK Entrepreneurs’ Visa. If you are accepted to TechStars London, you now automatically get the UK Entrepreneurs’ Visa.
The approval will allow TechStars London teams from outside of the EU to work in the UK for up to three years. After the three years, they can apply to extend their stay by a further two years if they want to continue living here. Furthermore after three years teams have the right to apply for permission to settle in the UK if their business has created at least 10 new full-time jobs in the UK. Partners and children of the teams can also apply for settlement.
As you likely know, I’ve been advocating for something like this in the US since 2009. Fred Wilson wrote a good post yesterday on the current state of Immigration Reform in the US which includes a summary of the recently introduced comprehensive immigration reform bill. It includes a bunch of things I’ve advocated for since I started paying attention to this in 2009, including a Startup Visa and a STEM Visa (or – in my language – “a Visa stapled to the diploma of every college graduate.”)
I hope we finally get something done in the US. In the mean time, Canada and the UK are being very forward looking about their immigration policy in the context of immigration. The US doesn’t have a monopoly on innovation – it’s time for us to get our act together on the immigration front. In the mean time, TechStars London applications are open!
With the immigration debate in Washington heating up, Americans across the country recognize that we need smart and practical solutions to help reform our country’s broken immigration system.
Our immigration laws haven’t been significantly updated in almost 50 years, while other countries are implementing immigration programs to lure entrepreneurs, innovators, skilled workers, and other valuable potential employees. Meanwhile, our system still works to support a Cold War economy in the 21st century. It’s an outdated and outmoded system that is as frustrating as it is ineffective.
That’s why this past February I joined with the Partnership for a New American Economy to join the March for Innovation, one of the largest virtual marches on Washington to promote smart immigration reform that will keep us competitive and help our economy grow. Run by the Partnership – a coalition of more than 500 mayors and CEOs led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg – the March will unite these same leaders and the greater public in pushing for economically-smart, pro-tech, pro-entrepreneur immigration reform, including:
- Visas for entrepreneurs
- Access to high-skilled workers when and where they are needed through H-1B visas and green cards
- Green cards for the advanced degree graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) we are training in our universities
And we need your help! As we saw last year, virtual marches like the online protest against SOPA and PIPA can make a real difference in Washington. However, SOPA and PIPA worked because the campaign went viral. With your support, we can make the March for Innovation even more effective.
This call to action starts today and will culminate with a Thunderclap when legislation is introduced in May. We invite you to join us:
Start by sharing a tweet or Facebook post at marchforinnovation.com
- If you have a story to tell, share it with the March for Innovation team at the same site
- Join the Thunderclap (which will flood Twitter on the day of the March for Innovation) and follow the March on Facebook and Twitter
- Use your company homepage to drive traffic to marchforinnovation.com with their widget atmarchforinnovation.com/get_
widget - Email the March at info@marchforinnovation.com and tell them how you think you can help the effort.
I encourage you to get involved and get active on this issue. Our competitiveness on the world stage may depend on it.
I’m in the Little Rock airport on my way home. After having an abysmal travel day yesterday that started off at 5:30am with me being detained By U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Toronto airport, I finally got to Little Rock around 4pm, made it to the Startup Arkansas event around 5:30pm, and did two hours of open office hours, a Startup Communities talk, and general Q&A. When I got back to my hotel room around 10:30pm and crawled into bed after hanging around with the entrepreneurs at a great after party, the crappy US CBP experience had been washed off of me. I had a great evening, and, like entrepreneurs everywhere, the people I got to hang out with in Arkansas are optimistic, fun, excited about what they are doing, and building the future. And they like beer, which I needed after a very long day.
I had two separate bad dreams last night about being detained. The first was a strange, complex one that is now fuzzy in my head, but happened in a futuristic, very dark setting. The second is still fresh – I was with Dick Costolo (Twitter CEO) somewhere in San Francisco and we were detained by military people who put us in a room, took away our iPhones because they were afraid Dick would start a revolution since he controlled Twitter, and made us sit silently back to back. I woke up before that dream resolved.
When I woke up from my second dream, I realized I was wondering why you are forbidden from using your iPhone in US Immigration areas. I notice this all the time when I enter the US – you go through a door into where the giant immigration room is and you are bombarded with the universal “no phone” sign. Then, when you break this rule and tweet a photo of the “no phone” sign, one of the CBP people inevitably comes over to you and tells you that you can’t use your phone there.
Yesterday, after I ended up in what I have been told is called the “secondary” room, I quickly sent Amy and Kelly an email telling them where I was. I then tweeted that I had been detained by CBP. This took about 30 seconds, at which point one of the CBP agents very aggressively told me that I couldn’t use my phone in this room.
I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask why, nor do I think it would have been particularly helpful. I’m sure the formal reason is something like “you are on government property and we get to set the rules on what you do” and then there is – if pushed – some separate justification about security. But I’ve used my iPhone when I was in the White House, I’ve taken a photos of Obama with it, I check in on FourSquare at various government buildings, and I have spent many mindless minutes waiting on a line for some government service somewhere using my iPhone. And some very creative people have videoed their own experience with CPB and DHS agents doing ridiculous things, making absurd statements, and demonstrating what happens when they don’t understand civil liberties and our constitution as well as the people they are trying to question.
Why am I forbidden from using it in an Immigration facility? Are they afraid of people videoing what they are doing? Are they worried that I’ll rally a twitter mob to break me out of the secondary detention area. Or are they just enjoying exercising their ability to eliminate my ability to communicate with the outside world?
I’m clearly still riled up about yesterday, although I’m mostly just sad about it. It’s horrifying to me how, as a government, we treat non-US citizens who are legally in this country. It’s also disgusting to me how difficult we make it for people to come into this country and startup businesses, which ironically is the foundation on which much of this country has been built. And now that I had a very direct and minor taste of it, I’m sad that we’ve let things get to this point.
I’ve had a shitty morning.
After a really fun day yesterday in Waterloo at Communitech, which is really impressive, I woke up at 4:30am to make my 6:30am flight from Toronto to Chicago on my way to Little Rock, Arkansas where I’m speaking at the launch of Startup Arkansas. I was going to run the Little Rock Marathon on Sunday but I’m undertrained and – while I could get it done – decided I wasn’t ready to deal with the physical and emotional recovery cycle given all the work I’ve got going on. So I bailed on the marathon, but since they’d organized the Startup Arkansas event around my schedule and managed to procure me a number for the sold out marathon, I decided to go ahead and fulfill my commitment to that.
At 5:30am after checking in and getting my boarding pass, I slammed into the wall of US CBP. I’ve been through the Toronto checkpoint a few times and it’s always a long line that moves slowly. I got to the front by 5:45am so I felt like I had plenty of time to make my 6:30am flight.
As I waited for my turn, I noticed the CBP agent whose line I was in was moving slowly. The guy two people in front of me took about three minutes to clear – he had to take off his hat, then his glasses, and had to do some fingerprint thing on the scanner that I can’t remember ever having seen used before. I didn’t really think much of it, but I noticed it.
When it was my turn, I said a polite hello to the CBP agent, gave him my passport and customs form, and waited patiently. He handed me back my customs form and said “Put your correct address on this.” I looked down and noticed I had written my P.O. Box in Eldorado Springs as my address, since that’s my address. I responded “That’s my correct legal address.” He responded, “Do you live inside a P.O. Box?” I said, as politely as I could, “No.” He then said “Is your house inside your P.O. Box?” I said, “No, I have a house a mile away, but the P.O. Box is my address – at least that’s what the US Postal Service says.” By this point I realized he wanted a street address and not a P.O. Box, so I said “I’m sorry, I’ll write down the house address I have” which I proceeded to do.
I stood there quietly for about a minute as he typed stuff into his computer. He then handed my passport and my customs form to me after scribbling something illegible on it, handed me a yellow card, pointed at a room, and said, “Go into that room.” I asked whether there was a problem and he said more forcefully, “Go into that room.”
I did. It was a bigger room with about 10 CBP people. There were about 5 non-CBP people. No one acknowledged me as I walked into the room. I went up to one of the CBP people and said, “I was told to go to this room – can you tell me what I need to do?” He responded, “Give me your documents and go sit down over there until called.” This time I asked “Can you explain what’s going on?” The response was “Go sit over there until you are called.”
At this point I got anxious. I went and sat down. I sent Amy and my assistant Kelly an email telling them where I was. I tweeted that I had been detained by CBP. I started looking up flight information on my iPhone and a different CBP agent barked at me, “Sir, you must turn off your cell phone in this room.” So I did.
I looked at the clock. It was now 6:00am. I resigned myself that I was going to miss my 6:30am flight. At 6:15am I heard someone from the other end of the room call “Feld.” I got up, took my bags, and went to where that person was. He told me to put my bags down and stand in front of him. He proceeded to empty out my bags and go through them carefully. After he packed them back up, he typed a few things into the computer, asked me a few routine questions, including where I lived, which I answered more precisely this time with a house address, explained that the postal service wouldn’t come to deliver to my house, so I had a P.O. Box as the US Post Office that I used as my address. He stamped my forms, handed them back to me, and pointed at a door and said, “Go through there.”
I had no idea whether things were about to get better or worse. I asked him politely, “Can you explain why you are detaining me.” He responded with “Because you are traveling to the US.” I said, “I was asking why you’ve detained me for 30 minutes. Specifically, what was the reason?” The CBP officer said, “Because you are traveling to the US – we don’t have to give you a reason.”
I quietly picked up my stuff and went through the door he had pointed at. It led me back to the security area, in front of the long line to go through the xray machine, but behind the CBP checkpoint. So apparently I had now cleared customs, but still had to go through security.
It was 6:25am at this point. No way I was going to make my flight. I took a deep breath, realized my heart rate was high (probably over 100), and I was extremely anxious. I went into mellow shut down mode as quickly as I could, just soldered through security, and got to my gate. At the point the normal absurdity of air travel took over and even though I was on a United / Air Canada codeshare, the gate agent for the flight I missed (Air Canada) wouldn’t help me, the United Global Services people couldn’t figure out how to change my ticket, and ultimately I wandered over the gate that I figured out with the United Global Services person was my replacement flight, where the gate agent there was very helpful and soothing for the first time this morning.
I’m now in Chicago waiting for my flight to Little Rock. Given the flight times, I’ve got a lovely three hour wait, which I’m filling up with a long blog post to empty my head, all the phone calls that Kelly scrambled to reschedule, and some email time.
I’ve been awake for 7 hours. I’ve managed to get from Toronto to Chicago. My heart rate is back to normal. I feel fine but the 45 minutes of CBP stress, which was minor compared to what I know a lot of people face, sits with me in a very bitter way. CNN is in the background with the talking heads blathering on about sequestration and all the problems it, and our government, are creating. And I remember that getting into Canada on Wednesday took me literally five minutes, was pleasant, and welcoming.
What a shitty morning.
I’ve regularly blog about patent trolls harassing startups and impeding innovation, the experiences of immigrant founders, and the battle for a free internet. While I’m fortunate to have this blog, and other writing opportunities as a platform to give voice to these stories, I also realize that to really have a meaningful impact, we need the startup community to be involved in government.
That’s where Engine Advocacy comes in. A few months ago, I joined the Advisory Board of Engine to lend my support to an organization that is doing amazing work for the startup ecosystem. We’re trying to create a startup community that can mobilize to make the government listen and understand the issues that have a unique impact on our community.
Here’s an example of great work that Engine has done: During the fight against SOPA/PIPA last year it seemed to a lot of outsiders that the internet community’s reaction happened overnight. What many people don’t know is that there were hundreds of organizations and businesses working together for months to make that one-day blackout so impactful. Engine connected 15,000 calls from individuals to their Senators that day. The sheer volume of calls shut down the Senate switchboard, twice.
Engine is always monitoring the issues, doing great research, keeping members informed so that we can identify any threats early, and respond as a community. There are many ways that startups can get involved, perhaps the simplest being just keeping up-to-speed on tech policy.
At the end of this month, Engine is bringing startups to Washington, D.C. to talk to lawmakers about issues that are really important to the startup community — issues like immigration, software patent reform, and keeping the internet free and open. You can get involved by becoming an Engine member today. Go to D.C. with them. Send them your stories.
Ultimately, we’re not just Silicon Valley, or Boulder., or any other geographically-defined tech scene. We’re a powerful community that is creating jobs and improving the economy — basically, doing all of those things that Senators and Members of Congress talk about making happen. It’s time they listened to us. Let’s make the startup community a stronger voice in Washington.
Startup Visa Act 2013 Introduced By Udall (D-Colo) and Flake (R-Ariz)
Today appears to be government day on Feld Thoughts. This morning I wrote about the Colorado PUC trying to shut down Uber in Colorado (bad). Now I get to write about Senators Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) re-introducing the Startup Visa Act of 2013 (good).
Mark – thank you – you’ve been an awesome supporter of this and leader of the effort since the first day we discussed it in 2009. Senator Flake – thank you for showing leadership on this issue.
Yesterday, as part of his Comprehensive Immigration Report plan, President Obama explicitly listed the Startup Visa as one of the initiatives.
Obama: “Create a “startup visa” for job-creating entrepreneurs. The proposal allows foreign entrepreneurs who attract financing from U.S. investors or revenue from U.S. customers to start and grow their businesses in the United States, and to remain permanently if their companies grow further, create jobs for American workers, and strengthen our economy.”
He also supported stapling green cards to diplomas, something I’ve been advocating since my OpEd with Paul Kedrosky in the Wall Street Journal on 12/2/09 titled Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy.
Feld/Kedrosky: We also think science and engineering graduates should get visas stapled to their diplomas. You complete your higher education here, you get to stay so that you can get out and create jobs, innovate, and grow the economy. Uncle Sam wants you, if you’re a prospective entrepreneur.
Obama: “Staple” green cards to advanced STEM diplomas. The proposal encourages foreign graduate students educated in the United States to stay here and contribute to our economy by “stapling” a green card to the diplomas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) PhD and Master’s Degree graduates from qualified U.S. universities who have found employment in the United States. It also requires employers to pay a fee that will support education and training to grow the next generation of American workers in STEM careers.
Fred Wilson, who has also been a vocal leader for these initiatives, expressed his appreciation that these issues are now part of the national immigration reform discussion in his post The Startup Visa.
Wilson: The President announced yesterday that he was in favor of a Startup Visa. Hallelujah. … It’s a shame that it takes almost four years before a good idea gets the President’s support. And its a greater shame that there are many in Congress who will still vote against this idea.
Fred and I are both paranoid optimists – we both hope this gets done this time around. Our country deserves it. Senators Udall and Flake – thank you for the leadership here.
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I read the announcement today that Canada has just launched a Start-Up Visa Program. By doing so, they are saying to the world “welcome immigrant entrepreneurs – please come start your business in Canada.” It’s brilliant, well executed, and modeled after the Startup Visa movement that a number of us have been trying to get started in the US since 2009.
I continue to be really discouraged by the US government activity around the Startup Visa movement, and more specifically around immigration reform as it applies to entrepreneurs. After trying for the past three years to get something passed, nothing has happened beyond administrative changes to the existing laws. While in some cases this has improved the interpretation of the rules, we are still totally missing the boat here in the US. CBP and USCIS continue to implement the rules inconsistently, resulting in regular outrageous situations including tossing entrepreneurs with existing valid visas in jail when they enter the US and banning other entrepreneurs from coming into the country as a result of misinterpretation by CBP of how things should work. I hear at least one horrifying story a week, try to help when I can, but mostly am just embarrassed and ashamed of our US policies around this.
While Canada is plowing forward making it easy for immigrant entrepreneurs to move to Canada and start companies, the US efforts are now entirely focused on “comprehensive immigration reform.” The first bills for this are supposed to start appearing in a few months and I expect we’ll see similar dynamics that we saw around Obamacare. Endless political machinations, an ever expanding set of bills that cover all kinds of things in addition to immigration reform, and a complex set of tradeoffs that have unintended consequences that no one can understand.
On top of this, I’ve heard from a number of political insider friends that “the vote math doesn’t work.” I’ve learned that this means it is an incredible uphill battle to get anything passed, and the compromise that is going to happen to get certain people in Congress to support the bills means that the “tradeoffs and compromises” (which the more cynical among us – including me – means “the political bribes they need to agree to vote a certain way”)are going to be extensive.
In the mean time, Canada is shouting from the rooftops about the benefits of the Start-Up Visa program.
- The Start-up Visa Program will enable immigrant entrepreneurs to launch innovative companies that will create jobs in Canada, and eventually, compete globally.
- The Program will provide entrepreneurs with valuable assistance in navigating the Canadian business environment which can sometimes prove challenging for newcomers.
- The Program will provide private sector firms with access to a broader range of entrepreneurs, including the best and the brightest minds from around the world.
Since I believe entrepreneurs should be able to start their companies anywhere in the world they’d like, I applaud the Canadian government for taking action here. And I encourage any immigrant entrepreneur considering moving to the US to also consider moving to Canada given this new program.
Dear Mr. Friends In Washington: Pay attention. We continue to be less competitive because of our intransigence around immigration, especially with regard to being entrepreneurs. Canada is showing real leadership. Why not just emulate them?
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I’m so sick of how – as a country – our authorities treat people as though they are criminals. A month ago a successful Boston entrepreneur who has been incredibly engaged in the Boston startup community was thrown in jail for three days after a CPB agent decided she didn’t have a valid visa (she did have a valid visa, and she was from that extremely dangerous country of Canada.)
A few days ago, Laurie Voss, a co-founder of a company we are investors in was detained for three hours at the board because he stated his job was “software developer” instead of “web developer”. He had recently gotten his green card and went on to describe the harrowing experience he endured, along with the unceremonious release a few hours later.
While I’m happy that USCIS continues to try to education its workforce as well as entrepreneurs via programs like A New Front Door for Immigrant Entrepreneurs, the words at the top and the actions in the field are completely disconnected. I hear a story about it almost daily and I’m now having someone I’m directly connected to or involved with impacted at least a month. It seems to be getting worse, not better, which just sucks.
If you care about this issue, I once again refer you to to Vivek Wadhwa’s excellent book called The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent. Tom Friedman has also written a number of really clear OpEds on this topic in the past year or so. With all the talk about innovation, entrepreneurship, and the need for job creators in the US, our immigration policies are directly at odds with the concepts our politicians are telling us are critical for our economy to grow.
The conversation in Washington DC has shifted back to “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” I’ve now had several people I know in the White House tell me this is the new immigration priority as in “let’s fix the whole problem with comprehensive immigration reform” over the next four years. In the last week, I’ve heard from several that “there’s no way we are going to be able to get anything done on immigration reform anytime soon because of all the fiscal crisis issues and partisanship in Congress.”
Awesome. We continue to be functioning in a delusional context. The Democrats think they have magic political power because of the results of the election and the Republicans are focused more than ever on not letting the Democrats “win.” And President George W. Bush, who I disagree with on so many things, recently asserted that immigration reform is needed to boost the economy and specifically said, “”Not only do immigrants help build our economy, they help invigorate our soul.”
While the entire situation is ridiculous, I’m continually upset by the way entrepreneurs like Laurie Voss are treated by CBP and USCIS. I’ve asked for apologies before and I’ll ask for them again. CBP / USCIS, or someone in the White House – please call Laurie and apologize to him. Then figure out the real root cause of the behavioral problem. And start respecting immigrants, not treating every one like a bad guy until you confirm they aren’t.