> "Today, startups are almost completely prevented from using H1 and L1/2 visas because of the paperwork requirements"

Bullpucky. I am a H-1B holder on my second US-based startup now. The process for getting a H-1B is the same regardless of if your sponsor is Microsoft or Startup.ly.

Hiring H-1Bs is so common for startups that there is no shortage of immigration law firms to service companies that don't have the size to do it internally. I can rattle of a list of five firms I've worked with in the past off the top of my head.

The only real problem with hiring H-1Bs for startups is the long lead time required. For massive companies with predictable aggregate growth, they can afford to hire someone early in the year and have them start October 1st - for many startups that long gap is impossible since the need for people is more immediate and acute. I'm generally of the notion that the once-a-year cycle for H-1Bs would be much better served by moving to a month-by-month model - which would help smaller companies enormously.

> "The established companies in question usually pay millions and millions to hire the first tech worker"

This is not true. I make it a point to look at at much paperwork as I can when I deal with immigration-related matters. The cost for a visa is in the mid thousands, not millions. Like I've said before, there is no shortage of immigration law firms that do this work, there is absolutely no need to set up your own internal legal department to handle immigration unless your sheer size warrants it.

> "putting tech worker visas up to bid would be good for tech workers, good for startups, good for R&D focused companies"

I disagree. In fact I believe that auctioning work visas will only serve to create the future you're most afraid of - the one where massive companies corner the bulk of the visas. It will also serve the re-create the foul situation we've only just now started to untangle re: indentured servitude and the H-1B visa.

We've seen in the past where the nature of green card applications allows employers to hold their employees over a barrel. We've seen contracts that resemble indentured servitude where the payout for the employee is a green card. We've seen tech workers terrorized by managers by having their immigration status constantly lorded over them. It's positively Dickensian and dystopian.

It is still a reality for many, though with reforms in the green card application process, it is thankfully getting better.

So now we dramatically raise the bar on work visa costs, which will only serve to create an alternate avenue for this sort of behavior. Want to come work in the US? MegaCorp will outbid everyone else, and in exchange MegaCorp corners the entire international talent market and gets everybody on a 10-year contract with insane termination clauses (not to mention being shipped back home). A lighter version of this is already reality for many people in the tech industry - this isn't just wild fantasy.

The only losers here are the startups who don't have the sheer cash power to fight the big corporations, and who do not have the means of signing employment contracts with a 10-year horizon. Oh, and the tech workers, who will work in conditions once thought to only exist in Industrial Revolution England.

I'm all for muscling Infosys and WiPro out of the talent-importation market, but there has got to be a better way.