My family moved to the US when I was 8, but by the time I turned 20, my dad was still on an H1B (waiting to get processed for a green card). Once I turned 21, I would age out as his dependent, despite the fact that I basically grew up in the US. I thought I'd have to become a code monkey after college, and even that only if I was lucky enough to win the H1B lottery. Otherwise, back to India. I had become a huge fan of @paulg's essays in college. I was actually depressed that my desire to start a startup or do something entrepreneurial was basically hopeless. Working on the promising podcast I was doing as a side project? A beyond impossible pipe dream. Even after 9 years, my dad wasn't able to get a green card - and the lines were only getting longer over time. I figured I'd be an old man before I could quit some FANG job and build my own thing. By some miracle, COVID travel restrictions cleared out the lines, and I got my green card literally months before I would have aged out. If not for this unbelievable coincidence, I would not be hosting the podcast. In the best case, I would be shifting pixels around in the 3rd sub-sub-menu of some big tech software. I'm incredibly grateful I made it through. But it's unconscionable that we put the kids of high skilled immigrants through all this anxiety, and in many cases make them repeat the nerve-racking indentured life trajectory that they had to watch their parents go through.
