Thread: That's America: 10 Stocks Launched by Immigrants

This story was featured in AOL's "Financial News" section yesterday and today - on our Independence Day weekend! What is not mentioned is that five of the most recent founders of the companies listed either were brought to the United States as young children and/or were educated here. Although the "immigrant" is always the featured "founder" of the company here, in at least two cases they actually were co-founders. Please go to source link for complete individual descriptions.

On the Street
by Dan Burrows and Jason Kephart

That's America: 10 Stocks Launched by Immigrants

America may be the great melting pot, but it hasn't always fully embraced the immigrants who have arrived on its shores and helped build its foundations. For years, there have been heated debates over everything from how many visas the government should issue to whether newcomers to America are stealing jobs and lowering wages for U.S. citizens.

Indeed, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum rose to national prominence partly on his support for building a barrier along the border with Mexico. On the other side of the debate, the Obama administration has pledged to make creating a path for illegal immigrants to become legal a top priority.

But no matter where people stand on the immigration issue there is one thing that isn't up for debate: Foreign-born entrepreneurs have founded some of the nation's biggest companies, and have been responsible for employing millions of Americans over the course of U.S. history.

See 10 companies that were started by immigrants

Nearly 30 years after coming to this country, Vivek Wadhwa, an Indian immigrant, two-time entrepreneur and visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (he holds similar appointments at Harvard and Duke Universities) co-authored a study that found that, between 1995 and 2005, more than a quarter of the nation's tech startups had at least one founder who was foreign born. Perhaps more important, immigrant-founded tech companies generated more than $50 billion in annual sales and, in 2005, employed some 450,000 people. The numbers are even greater if you look beyond the tech sector, he says.

"America is the most desirable country in the world for a foreigner," says Wadhwa. "And it is also the most entrepreneurial society on earth. America encourages risk-taking. It's called the American Dream."

From the French-born founder of DuPont (DD: 24.78, -1.02, -3.95%) who started out selling gunpowder in the early 1800s to Hungarian-born Andy Grove, the co-founder of Intel (INTC: 16.72, -0.32, -1.87%), corporate America and Americans have long benefitted from such risk-taking immigrant entrepreneurs. With Independence Day upon us, SmartMoney surveyed the corporate landscape looking for major American companies that were founded by immigrants. From the bluest (and oldest) of blue chips to the biggest of upstart tech giants, here is a look at 10 companies that fulfill the promise of the American Dream -- and provide tens of thousands of Americans with jobs.


1 Carnival Corporation
2 DuPont
3 eBay
(founder came to U.S. when he was 6 years old.)
4 Google
(Russian co-founder Sergey Brin (educated in the U.S.) is the featured "founder" here, although I have read that the co-founder- American Larry Page, whom he met at Stanford University - was the one who conceived the defining idea behind Google.
5 Intel
(Hungarian-born founder Andy Grove was educated in the U.S.)
6 Nvidia
(founder Jen-Hsun Huang evidently lived most of his life in the U.S. and was educated here.)
7 Pfizer
8 Proctor & Gamble
9 U.S. Steel
10 Yahoo
(co-founder was born in Taiwan. The nationality of the company's co-founder is not given.)

http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/sto ... mmigrants/

Good article. BUT, we,as a whole, have not been complaining of immigrants of years gone by.

And let us NOT forget that these great men have formed corporations,and yes they were immigrants! And there are more. But guess what? We are American citizens and we worked for them ! Many of us are immigrants from those same countries they speak of.

So what is truely their point in this article. We already know about immigrants that have made a big splash here in the USA?

I can not see these two guys,Jason and Dan comparing the immigrants to ILLEGAL ALIENS. I tried to write a comment on their page but it would not let me. It may be timed out for comments. Many that come to the USA today also want more then just a job. They want a handout and they want money to send back home to their country of origin.

Unfortunately a large number of people who immigrate to the US these days have ulterior "designs' in mind--to get their mitts on American money as quickly as possible, and they are not restrained by many moral considerations. I have been running into this in the investing field. There was a reason for letting in European immigrants in our early years, We lacked the skilled workforce to maintain our independence against the major powers of the day: Not only England and France but Russia, Spain, Japan and China.

In the days when these immigrants arrived, they observed the laws of the land, unlike the illegals today.
Personally, I think there should be a moratorium on legal immigration before we run out of water. Of course, Joe Biden in a speech at the naturalization ceremony of 267 members of the military basically said this country is never closed to immigration.

Fine, I have no problem letting in 10,000 high IQ and motivated immigrants a year to start high sales/profit companies. It's the other 1.5 million a year that are a problem, especially the uneducated public ward ones.

I mean, how many taco venders do we need?

Arent the listed companies some of the biggest users of H1B workers? And who do these companies hire? Do they hire americans? Because it seems to me that part of the hiring problem is that IMMIGRANT owners or bosses hire immigrants or illegals at the expense of american workers. I dont think immigrants starting companies here is necessarily a good thing as they tend to favor immigrant labor. That is one of the causes of the mass immigration (some of it fraudulent) and illegal immigration to this country.

Why does it have to be a choice of one or the other? How many high "IQ and motivated immigrants" do we need who come here and start businesses, only to exploit H1-B visas, essentially as defacto green cards, in an effort to avoid hiring American workers and pipeline as many of their fellow countrymen as they can?

Here's a novel approach. Lets make it as easy for American citizens to start a business as we do immigrants who arrive on our shores with nothing more than the "shirt on their back" and a dream.

The fact is, there is a big difference between the European immigrants who made their way to our shores in early/mid 20th century and those we find today knocking on our door( if they even to bother to knock). Those who came previously, arrived with the intent to be AMERICANS. This was not optional in their minds.

I know of personal stories, whereby great great grand parents refused to speak their native tongue to their children because they expected them to speak English. Some of you probably do as well. I'm not advocating this extreme, but simply use this as a comparison of what we see today. The fact is, they did not demand special treatment, and they most certainly did not refuse to speak English. It was just the opposite.

Contrast this with those those we find today. It seems as if they do not come here to be Americans. Rather, they come here as extensions of their third world countries and expect this country and its citizens to accomodate their every whim. They demand we educate them in their native tongue and provide translators to them. They demand forms be printed in their native language, which our government obliges, further aiding and abetting their refusal to learn English.

They no longer ask what they can do for this country, but what this county can give them! They are just as likely to ask for directions to the nearest welfare office as they are the nearest employment office.

In essence, they do not come to be Americans, but rather foreigners living within their own ethnic enclaves, while reaping every benefit available to them. At what point does "diversity" stop being diverse and begin to be divisive and take on the appearances of balkinization? No amount of praise for "diversity and multi-culturism" can change that fact.

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Why does it have to be a choice of one or the other? How many high "IQ and motivated immigrants" do we need who come here and start businesses, only to exploit H1-B visas, essentially as defacto green cards, in an effort to avoid hiring American workers and pipeline as many of their fellow countrymen as they can?.

I do agree we need to eliminate the H1B visas.