Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In
Paul Graham argues against the idea that training more American programmers can fill the talent gap. He contends that exceptional programming ability is innate and globally distributed: with the US having less than 5% of the world's population, 95% of great programmers are born elsewhere. Training can produce competent programmers but not exceptional ones. The fact that startups jump through legal hoops to hire foreign programmers at the same salary proves the shortage is real, not a plot to lower wages. Graham warns that if the US doesn't liberalize high-skilled immigration, the best programmers may cluster elsewhere, jeopardizing America's tech dominance.
December 2014American technology companies want the government to make immigration easier because they say they can't find enough programmers in the US. Anti-immigration people say that instead of letting foreigners take these jobs, we should train more Americans to be programmers. Who's right?
The technology companies are right. What the anti-immigration people don't understand is that there is a huge variation in ability between competent programmers and exceptional ones, and while you can train people to be competent, you can't train them to be exceptional. Exceptional programmers have an aptitude for and interest in programming that is not merely the product of training. [1]The US has less than 5% of the world's population. Which means if the qualities that make someone a great programmer are evenly distributed, 95% of great programmers are born outside the US.
[1] How much better is a great programmer than an ordinary one? So much better that you can't even measure the difference directly. A great programmer doesn't merely do the same work faster. A great programmer will invent things an ordinary programmer would never even think of. This doesn't mean a great programmer is infinitely more valuable, because any invention has a finite market value. But it's easy to imagine cases where a great programmer might invent things worth 100x or even 1000x an average programmer's salary.
2014年12月。美国科技公司希望政府放宽移民政策，因为他们说在美国找不到足够的程序员。反移民人士则认为，与其让外国人占据这些岗位，不如培训更多美国人成为程序员。谁是正确的？
科技公司是对的。反移民人士不理解的是，合格程序员与顶尖程序员之间存在巨大的能力差异，虽然可以培训人达到合格，但无法培训人变得卓越。卓越的程序员对编程有天生的资质和兴趣，这不仅仅是培训的产物。 [1]美国人口不到世界人口的5%。这意味着，如果造就顶尖程序员的特质均匀分布，那么95%的顶尖程序员出生在美国之外。
[1] 顶尖程序员比普通程序员优秀多少？优秀到无法直接衡量差距。顶尖程序员不只是更快地完成同样的工作。他们会发明普通程序员从未想到过的东西。这并不意味着顶尖程序员的价值无限大，因为任何发明都有有限的市场价值。但很容易想象，顶尖程序员的发明可能价值百倍甚至千倍于普通程序员的年薪。
The anti-immigration people have to invent some explanation to account for all the effort technology companies have expended trying to make immigration easier. So they claim it's because they want to drive down salaries. But if you talk to startups, you find practically every one over a certain size has gone through legal contortions to get programmers into the US, where they then paid them the same as they'd have paid an American. Why would they go to extra trouble to get programmers for the same price? The only explanation is that they're telling the truth: there are just not enough great programmers to go around.
[2] There are a handful of consulting firms that rent out big pools of foreign programmers they bring in on H1-B visas. By all means crack down on these. It should be easy to write legislation that distinguishes them, because they are so different from technology companies. But it is dishonest of the anti-immigration people to claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven by the same motives. An influx of inexpensive but mediocre programmers is the last thing they'd want; it would destroy them.
反移民人士必须编造某种解释，来应对科技公司为放宽移民所付出的努力。所以他们声称，这是因为科技公司想压低工资。但如果你和创业公司交流，会发现几乎所有达到一定规模的公司都费尽法律周折将程序员引入美国，然后付给他们与美国人相同的薪水。为什么他们要自找麻烦以同样的价格招聘程序员？唯一的解释是他们说的是实话：根本没有足够多的顶尖程序员可用。
[2] 有一些咨询公司出租大群通过H1-B签证引入的外国程序员。尽管打击这些公司。制定法律区分它们应该很容易，因为它们与科技公司截然不同。但反移民人士声称谷歌、脸书这类公司受相同动机驱动，这是不诚实的。大量廉价但平庸的程序员恰恰是它们最不想要的；那会毁了它们。
I asked the CEO of a startup with about 70 programmers how many more he'd hire if he could get all the great programmers he wanted. He said "We'd hire 30 tomorrow morning." And this is one of the hot startups that always win recruiting battles. It's the same all over Silicon Valley. Startups are that constrained for talent.
我问一家拥有约70名程序员的创业公司CEO，如果能得到所有他想要的顶尖程序员，他还会多招多少人。他说：“我们明天早上就能招30人。”而这是一家总是在招聘战中获胜的热门创业公司。整个硅谷都一样。创业公司就是如此受人才限制。
It would be great if more Americans were trained as programmers, but no amount of training can flip a ratio as overwhelming as 95 to 5. Especially since programmers are being trained in other countries too. Barring some cataclysm, it will always be true that most great programmers are born outside the US. It will always be true that most people who are great at anything are born outside the US.
如果更多美国人接受程序员培训固然很好，但任何数量的培训都无法扭转95比5这样压倒性的比例。更何况其他国家也在培养程序员。除非发生某种大灾难，否则大多数顶尖程序员将永远出生在美国之外。在任何领域，大多数顶尖人才都出生在美国之外，这一点也将永远成立。
Exceptional performance implies immigration. A country with only a few percent of the world's population will be exceptional in some field only if there are a lot of immigrants working in it.
卓越的表现意味着移民。一个仅占世界人口百分之几的国家，只有在某个领域有大量移民工作时，才能在该领域表现卓越。
But this whole discussion has taken something for granted: that if we let more great programmers into the US, they'll want to come. That's true now, and we don't realize how lucky we are that it is. If we want to keep this option open, the best way to do it is to take advantage of it: the more of the world's great programmers are here, the more the rest will want to come here.
And if we don't, the US could be seriously fucked. I realize that's strong language, but the people dithering about this don't seem to realize the power of the forces at work here. Technology gives the best programmers huge leverage. The world market in programmers seems to be becoming dramatically more liquid. And since good people like good colleagues, that means the best programmers could collect in just a few hubs. Maybe mostly in one hub.
但整场讨论都默认了一件事：如果我们让更多顶尖程序员进入美国，他们会愿意来。现在确实如此，而我们没有意识到这有多么幸运。如果我们想保留这个选项，最好的办法就是利用它：世界上的顶尖程序员越多地在这里，剩下的就越愿意来这里。
如果我们不这样做，美国可能会陷入严重困境。我知道这话说得重，但那些犹豫不决的人似乎没有意识到这里起作用的力量有多强大。技术赋予了顶尖程序员巨大的杠杆作用。世界程序员市场似乎正变得前所未有的流动。而且由于优秀的人喜欢优秀的同事，这意味着顶尖程序员可能只聚集在少数几个中心。也许主要集中在一个中心。
What if most of the great programmers collected in one hub, and it wasn't here? That scenario may seem unlikely now, but it won't be if things change as much in the next 50 years as they did in the last 50.
We have the potential to ensure that the US remains a technology superpower just by letting in a few thousand great programmers a year. What a colossal mistake it would be to let that opportunity slip. It could easily be the defining mistake this generation of American politicians later become famous for. And unlike other potential mistakes on that scale, it costs nothing to fix.
So please, get on with it.
如果大多数顶尖程序员聚集在一个中心，而那个中心不在美国怎么办？这种情况现在看起来不太可能，但如果未来50年的变化和过去50年一样大，它就不会一直不可能。
我们只需每年允许几千名顶尖程序员入境，就很有可能确保美国保持技术超级大国的地位。错过这个机会将是多么巨大的错误。它很容易成为这一代美国政治家日后出名的标志性错误。而与其他同等规模的潜在错误不同，修正它不需要任何成本。
所以，请行动起来吧。
[3] Though this essay talks about programmers, the group of people we need to import is broader, ranging from designers to programmers to electrical engineers. The best one could do as a general term might be "digital talent." It seemed better to make the argument a little too narrow than to confuse everyone with a neologism. Thanks to Sam Altman, John Collison, Patrick Collison, Jessica Livingston, Geoff Ralston, Fred Wilson, and Qasar Younis for reading drafts of this.
[3] 尽管这篇文章谈论的是程序员，但我们需要引进的人才范围更广，从设计师到程序员再到电气工程师。作为通用术语，最好的说法可能是“数字人才”。将论证范围稍微缩小一点，似乎比用新造词让大家困惑要好。 感谢 Sam Altman、John Collison、Patrick Collison、Jessica Livingston、Geoff Ralston、Fred Wilson 和 Qasar Younis 阅读本文草稿。