创始人签证：一个几乎零成本的经济刺激方案
Paul Graham 提出一项政策建议：设立专门的“创始人签证”，每年允许 1 万名外国创业者进入美国创办新公司。签证条款禁止创办人为现有企业工作，只能专注于自己的初创公司。为了确保签证发放给真正的创业者，政府可以借助风投机构的认证——只有获得认可风投投资的初创公司才符合资格。Graham 认为，这一举措不会抢夺美国人的就业机会，反而会创造大量岗位，且执行成本几乎为零。文章采用类似公知的随笔风格，没有具体数据或案例，但逻辑清晰。
I usually avoid politics, but since we now seem to have an administration that's open to suggestions, I'm going to risk making one. The single biggest thing the government could do to increase the number of startups in this country is a policy that would cost nothing: establish a new class of visa for startup founders.
The biggest constraint on the number of new startups that get created in the US is not tax policy or employment law or even Sarbanes-Oxley. It's that we won't let the people who want to start them into the country.
我通常不涉足政治，但既然现政府似乎愿意听取建议，我冒昧提出一项。政府最能促进本国初创企业数量的政策一分钱不花：为初创公司创始人设立一种新签证。美国新增初创公司数量的最大限制并非税收政策、雇佣法甚至萨班斯-奥克斯利法案，而是我们不让想创业的人进入美国。
Letting just 10,000 startup founders into the country each year could have a visible effect on the economy. If we assume 4 people per startup, which is probably an overestimate, that's 2500 new companies. Each year. They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2500 some would come close.
By definition these 10,000 founders wouldn't be taking jobs from Americans: it could be part of the terms of the visa that they couldn't work for existing companies, only new ones they'd founded. In fact they'd cause there to be more jobs for Americans, because the companies they started would hire more employees as they grew.
每年仅让1万名创始人入境就能对经济产生明显影响。假设每个初创公司4人（可能高估），那就是2500家新公司，每年。它们不会都长成谷歌那么大，但2500家中总会有一些接近。根据定义，这1万名创始人不会抢走美国人的工作：签证条款可规定他们不能为现有公司工作，只能为自己创办的新公司工作。事实上，他们反而会给美国人带来更多工作，因为他们创办的公司随着成长会雇佣更多员工。
The tricky part might seem to be how one defined a startup. But that could be solved quite easily: let the market decide. Startup investors work hard to find the best startups. The government could not do better than to piggyback on their expertise, and use investment by recognized startup investors as the test of whether a company was a real startup.
How would the government decide who's a startup investor? The same way they decide what counts as a university for student visas. We'll establish our own accreditation procedure. We know who one another are.
棘手的部分似乎是定义何为初创公司。但这很容易解决：让市场决定。初创投资者努力寻找最佳初创公司。政府最好借助他们的专业知识，将得到公认初创投资者投资作为判定一家公司是否真正初创公司的标准。政府如何判定谁是初创投资者？就像学生签证中判定什么算大学一样。我们将建立自己的认证程序。我们圈内人彼此认识。
10,000 people is a drop in the bucket by immigration standards, but would represent a huge increase in the pool of startup founders. I think this would have such a visible effect on the economy that it would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous. The only way to know for sure would be to try it, and that would cost practically nothing.
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Paul Buchheit, Jeff Clavier, David Hornik, Jessica Livingston, Greg Mcadoo, Aydin Senkut, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this.
1万人在移民标准中只是沧海一粟，但将极大扩充创始人池。我认为这将对经济产生明显影响，让提出该法案的议员名垂青史。唯一确定的方法是尝试，而且几乎不花成本。感谢Trevor Blackwell、Paul Buchheit、Jeff Clavier、David Hornik、Jessica Livingston、Greg Mcadoo、Aydin Senkut和Fred Wilson审阅本文草稿。