Sure, it is expensive, but the lower costs once they get here does make up for it in less than 18 months.
Additionally, even with the higher upfront capital costs, the return on capital is more positive. Much more positive than spending less money on a less capable US programmer or even a similar US programmer because of the lower fixed costs of a foreign worker.
Companies are rarely concerned with the upfront expenditure for something - they are mainly concerned with the ROI relative on said expenditure. And foreign CS specialists return much better than the average US graduate. The top US students from top programs do well (no surprise, as the best of anything do well regardless), but the average and lower US grads are not worth the cheaper costs of hiring because their overall ROI is lower.
And the truth of matter is there are relatively few top people from US schools with respect with the number of jobs requiring top people; hence, the gap is filled with foreign workers.
My company looks at foreign workers simply because for what we do it is not worth it for us to spend the time and money chasing the top US graduates because we can get the same talent for 20% less, plus we save on the compounding effect not having to pay FICA taxes and other federally-mandated entitlements.
Also, by “Silicon Valley” are you referring to the place or the HBO show? Having been in the go-go tech industry in the 1980s through 1990s, I find the show over-the-top and crass … but painfully realistic at the core. Everything from the big idea being reduced to an unintentionally overlooked component (the compression algorithm) to the backstabbing and lawsuits. I wish the show’s writers would go into the ridiculous world of software patent lawsuits because that’s very fertile ground for that type of comedy (USGov vs. XYZ Corp antitrust wouldn’t be near as funny).
@CourtneyThurston – gosh, you haven’t lived yet until you’ve received a ream of paper in your company mailbox detailing a software patent infringement lawsuit against your little software company (officially just a D&C, but you know where that leads)! You ask your attorney, because at $300/hour he’s better than the alternative, why the offended company included your home address in addition to your business address on the D&C and he casually replies “because they’re going after you personally as well” … gulp! Pepto-Bismol becomes your best friend. My favorite is when your attorney says, “you really have the tiger by its tail”, and you think that’s a positive until you google it and discover that the entity holding onto the tail is usually eaten alive! Gulp, again. Like I said, comedy gold material.
Doesn’t the corporation protect you personally from liability? I assume a corporate structure means they can’t go after your personal assets – that is a big part of the point of creating a corporation.
A corporation is not some magic shield that protects personal actions from personal assets exposure. Therefore, it depends on what is being alleged.
It is very possible that a personal action is being alleged and that fruits of that personal actions were later used by a corporation. In such a case, there is liability for the initial personal crime (personal assets are on the hook for this crime) and subsequent liability for the corporate crime (corporate assets are on the hook for this crime).
The only way a corporate structure “saves” personal assets is if it is demonstrably clear that the alleged crime was done in the name of the corporation and for the express purpose of aiding the corporation, i.e., as part of official business.
However, one can easily put one’s personal assets in play by simply transacting the alleged crime using a personal email account or a personal social media account. This is why it is very important never to transact corporate business using any personal email and social media accounts - stick with official business communication accounts and avenues.
the best computer people are “created” in a basements in a suburb of Pittsburgh or Indianapolis. those people meet up with other people say in college and found companies in a dorm room. they than drop out of school. that is if they ever went to college in the first place.
“What is not considered is whether that puts the country at risk. That makes sense, as corporate executives are supposed to manage the microeconomics (company profits) if you will, and political leaders the macroeconomics (welfare of the country). Just as US consumers will shop at retailers that sell cheap foreign made goods, companies have a budget too.”
that is pretty hard to when all the politicians are bought off by the multi-nationals. so when thats the case, as it is, who's looking out for who? We have a system that is currently set up to maintain/increase the short term profit with very little thought to the long term.
@awcntdb – this happened a week or two after I formed an LLC to sell programs I’d written as a hobby in my home office … not good. To say I was in over my head is an understatement. It took about a month of back-and-forth to clear things up. Special bonus: I lost a lot of weight that month!
You fell into the typical quicksand of the hobbyist turned corporate.
It was your personal (hobby) creations that you transitioned into a business to sell. Unfortunately, your personal actions of creating in your home office put your personal assets on the line, as you created the products without a corporate umbrella.
This is true for many fields, except the technical ones, such as doctors and lawyers.
It is not a accident that the Forbes 400 list at one time contained people where over half did not have a college degree and some 15% never went to college at all. Yet, they were the richest people in the country and ran incredible businesses and could out-think and out-perform the top MBAs that they hire/ (And this is after eliminating for the inherited wealth people on the list).
Today, a slightly higher percentage went to college, but not much, and an MBA is still not necessary to make the list. In fact, an MBA is probably one of the impediments to make the list because getting an MBA has nothing to do with being an entrepreneur and many MBA practices are counter to what it takes to make a great entrepreneur.
Question: Are their lawyers answering the “corporate veil” questions in this thread?
IANAL either, but I do not think some of this information is accurate. I will accept that I am wrong if expertise is claimed. But:
I do not think there is precedent that using a "personal email account" is enough to pierce the corporate veil. in fact, I do not think there is a legal definition of a "corporate email account" vs a personal one. Smith145@gmail.com, smithsoftware@yahoo.com, smith@smithsoftware.com, all the same.
I do not think it matters if you write some code before you actually incorporate. You can transfer those assets to your corporation the same way you can transfer personal dollars into a corporate bank account. (Keep all funds separate, that is the #1 way corporate veil is pierced. Plus the taxman does not like it if you don't.)
It DOES matter if you are working for a company and you write code on their equipment during their time, but not if it is on your own of both.
When it comes to CRIMES, yes those events, such as frauds, can pierce the corporate veil. See Enron/Ken Lay as an example. (He dodged that bullet by dying, BTW, and his heirs got to keep it all. Not a strategy I recommend.)
Am I wrong here?
@droppedit , what were the details of your situation? A patent infringement lawsuit can’t be brought unless you are marketing your product. If you did that before your LLC was in place, then yes, that was a mistake.
God I hate software patents, even though I hold a bunch.
@Postmodern – I was beta testing the problematic feature at the time. I don’t want to give out additional details. The issue was resolved before it got really ugly.
PS. Ugh, I wrote “D&C” in my earlier post when I meant to write “C&D”.
^^^ Public beta, I assume. Sorry you had to go through that. I hate this business and its lawyers so very much – the system is really designed to prohibit innovation and not protect innovators as it claims.
And don’t worry about your typo, everyone knew what you meant.
No offense to lawyers, but to heck with asking them, as they cannot stop you from being sued. No lawyer takes responsibility for their advice if wrong. They can advise one thing and when you still sued the response always is “Seems as if things have changed based on this new case here.” People need to get the fact that lawyers operate in the past tense, while you live in the present, and lawyers charge you whether they are right or wrong.
Specifically, I am speaking as a former president and CEO. Therefore, I know something (as in being a whole lot) about protecting corporate information, corporate assets, and the issues a personal email account could cause.
In your example that “Smith145@gmail.com, smithsoftware****.com, smith@smithsoftware.com, all the same” is accurate ONLY if the transactions on these accounts are consistently the same. i.e., business. All the above are legitimate business accounts, but that changes in the legal view if those accounts also are used for personal activities.
The main problem of using a separate personal email account for corporate is the corporate information in the personal account is no longer no longer exclusively on the corporate servers and pretty much immediately violates your employee NDA because now sensitive corporate information is stored on an unauthorized server. You are in deep water if your personal email is hacked and corporate information is compromised.
Second, in event of a lawsuit, personal email accounts are less “discoverable” and poses a huge issue with providing timely and all information in the lawsuit. However, once proved the person was conflating corporate and personal emails on the same account, it is not that difficult to cite negligence of corporate information and get ALL personal emails to be reviewed for violation of one’s NDA or for corruption, i.e., sharing corporate information with people outside the corporation with those who should not have it.
It does not take much overdoing of the above to get in a situation where personal and corporate business are inseparable and that can open one’s personal email account to discovery and you better hope your life is squeaky clean. This is because if it could be shown that you personally benefited from having corporate information in your personal account, then your personal assets are called into jeopardy.
In the specific case of the poster on this thread, his case was one of not being protected by the corporate veil at all when his products were first created, so his personal assets were on the line because the claim of infringement before a corporate entity existed. However, once created the safest way to avoid any claim of personal corruption or illegal use of corporate information is to avoid use of personal email for business.
Best to think of corporate information as real money because, in effect, the information does represent money because it has trade-able value to the recipient and to the sender or else the information would not be sent. If one does not conflate business and personal bank accounts, then to be safe, do the same for business and personal emails.
This is much akin to a speeding ticket - does not seem like a big deal until you are caught. Then, they run your tags, search your car, and find out X and Y additional and then you are in real trouble.
You are not addressing the issue - anyone can transfer anything, but that does not absolve alleged illegal activities that may have come beforehand.
The threatening C&D letter was alleging that prior to the transfer the software was created using the proceeds of an infringement. Transferring the software to a corporation DOES NOT change the alleged infringement claim. And it does not absolve the person of the infringement charge prior to forming the corporation.
Using your own example, if you personally steal a million dollars and then give it to your company, is that million dollars now the total responsibility of the corporation? Of course not. You are still on the hook for first personally stealing the million dollars. Your personal assets are not protected by the corporate veil after-the-fact for your personal crime. Transferring the money to a corporation only now puts both you and the corporation on the hook.
I am not being argumentative, but can you cite this? I understand and agree with your follow up point about discovery. Just WRT personal liability.
Again, I’d like to see a citation and example.
I won’t argue it is a good practice, and its just opinion in that regard anyway. I was questioning whether or not those things can pierce the corporate veil and make an individual liable. I did not think so and I would like to be corrected if not.
I say this with much respect and the best intent: This is TERRIBLE ADVICE.
“That is a generalization. I used to be in tech before moving into finance. Our company’s senior back-end IT workers can make $300K with bonus, considerably better than most of the engineers writing software for the F-35.”
Yes, not iBanking in New York but Assessment Management in Boston. Huge difference.
Don’t extrapolate salaries in the finance sector especially those dealing with OPM to the economy at large. Even mail room clerks likely make more in that sector.
