I / Silicon Valley June 7, 2007
| Internet search giant Google today urged the US government to raise the number of H-1B visas by highlighting the contributions of its co-founder Sergey Brin and the company's principal scientist Krishna Bharat, both foreign-origin workers. In Congressional testimony, Google Vice President of people operations Laszlo Bock cited the emigration of the parents of company co-founder Sergey Brin from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1979 as evidence that admitting foreign workers into the country benefits the US Economy. "We opened our doors to Sergey's parents -- a mathematician and an economist," said Bock. "Our educational system served Sergey well - he attended the University of Maryland and Stanford University. Our free market economy supported Sergey and Larry's entrepreneurship and rewarded it when they proved that they could turn their idea into a successful business." Bock said people were Google's most vital competitive asset and without these talented employees and others, the company and high-tech industry as whole would not be the success it is today. Krishna Bharat, a native of India joined Google in 1999 through H-1B visa, and was one one of the chief creators of Google News and is now its principal scientist. Bock said without Krishna and many other employees Google "will not be able to offer innovating and useful new products to our users." Each day Google finds itself unable to pursue highly qualified candidates because there are not enough H-1B visas, he said adding it will encourage Congress to significantly increase the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas to "reflect the growth rate of our technology driven-economy." |
