Sonu Aggarwal is one in every of numerous entrepreneurs and tech leaders who grew up overseas and immigrated to the U.S. to launch startups and work at American firms like Microsoft.
Aggarwal, this week named the brand new president of TiE Seattle, mentioned he’s frightened in regards to the impression of the brand new $100,000 H-1B visa charge launched final week by President Donald Trump.
“It feels very, very disruptive,” Aggarwal mentioned.
H-1B work visas enable firms to rent extremely expert international staff in “specialty occupations” resembling software program engineering. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai are amongst these who’ve used the visa to maneuver to the U.S.
The White Home argues the H-1B program has been exploited by outsourcing corporations that exchange U.S. staff with lower-paid international labor.
At present, firms pay a number of thousand {dollars} in authorities charges and authorized prices per H-1B software. Including a $100,000 surcharge per employee can be unprecedented.
The brand new charge might particularly have an effect on the Seattle tech trade. Amazon (10,044) and Microsoft (5,189) rank No. 1 and No. 3, respectively, for H-1B visa approvals issued to staff this 12 months.
The Seattle space additionally has one of many largest Asian Indian populations within the U.S. Greater than 40% of foreign-born IT staff within the Seattle space hail from India, the Seattle Occasions reported in 2018.
Aggarwal, who grew up in India, was a founding member of TiE Seattle, which launched in 2000 as a community with roots within the South Asian neighborhood to assist and promote entrepreneurship within the Seattle-area startup ecosystem.
TiE Seattle members have collectively created greater than $16 billion in market worth via the startups they based, in accordance with the group.
The brand new H-1B charge might particularly damage smaller startups that wish to rent nice expertise however have restricted runway and money.
Startups want predictability, Aggarwal mentioned. Drastic adjustments to the H-1B work visa course of can create roadblocks and discourage founders from taking dangers.
“That entrepreneurial spirit, that vitality — it’s like a flame you wish to continue to grow and maintain feeding,” he mentioned. “Such issues have a approach of just about snuffing out the flame.”
After graduating from MIT, Aggarwal based three startups — together with Seattle-area enterprise communications startup Unify Sq., which was acquired by Unisys for greater than $152 million in 2021.
Aggarwal mentioned if there wasn’t a “long-term predictable enterprise surroundings,” he wouldn’t have determined to pursue entrepreneurship and launch his startup (Flash Communications) that was finally acquired by Microsoft. “I might have simply continued working at some company out of college,” he mentioned.
Aggarwal, who’s engaged on a stealthy new AI startup, mentioned TiE Seattle will proceed supporting entrepreneurs navigating shifting visa insurance policies, whereas additionally increasing its attain past its roots to serve the broader startup neighborhood.
He mentioned he’s wanting ahead to infusing extra entrepreneurial spirit into the Seattle ecosystem.
“We’ve a chance … to have individuals take extra dangers, dream greater, to actually leverage all that we have now going for us within the ecosystem to create numerous worth,” he mentioned.
Aggarwal replaces Prashant Mishra, who led TiE Seattle for the previous two years.
TiE Seattle is a department of the worldwide nonprofit TiE, which counts 15,000 members all over the world.
