How Google’s Eric Schmidt Lied About Skill Shortages to Support H1-B

Executive Summary

• Many tech companies that are incredibly selective in their hiring, also complain about a need for more H1-B visas.
• Google is one such company.

Introduction

Eric Schmidt has a severe problem with consistency between his statements.

This is explained in the following quotation.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt bragged in the fall of 2014: “For every opening, Google receives at least 1,000 applications.” The good news, he told a Cleveland audience, “is that we have computers to do the initial vetting.

A year later, Schmidt was in Washington, sounding the tech work shortage alarm. “Everyone actually agrees that there should be more H1-B visas in order to create more tech, more science, more analytics jobs. Everyone agrees in both parties.  – Sold Out

Hmmm….was Eric Schmidt telling the truth to Congress, or does he have two different stories depending upon the audience? And how much does Eric Schmidt feel for the displaced US worker? Eric Schmidt has a net worth of $9 billion.

Secondly, H1-B and other foreign worker visas do not result in “more analytics jobs.”

Eric Schmidt’s Insight…..H1-B Visas Create Jobs?

Let us go over what the H1-B program is.

It is a foreign worker visa. It is not a program to encourage new company development. Eric Schmidt wants H1-B visas so that those people can work at Google — and each H1-B visa that is approved means one less job for US citizens. Let us go over that again….H1-B visa applications are looking for a job. If they wanted to start a company in the US, that would be a different program.

So now that we have established that the program CONSUMES US jobs and does not CREATE US jobs — what happens when the supply of something increases while the demand for that item stays the same?

Typically, the answer is that the price of that item goes down. Curiously, the impact of not just some but hundreds of thousands of foreign workers being brought into the US under a multitude of foreign workers programs (with the H1-B being only one in the tapestry of foreign worker visas as we covered in the article After H1-B, The L-1 Visa Program is the Next Worker Immigration Program to be Scammed), is undiscussed by Eric Schmidt in his testimony.

Eric Schmidt Wins Our Golden Pinnochio Award

Eric Schmidt gets our Golden Pinocchio Award for this false claim that H1-B visas create jobs. 

When Eric creates the word salad in the sentence,

“there should be more H1-B visas in order to create more tech, more science, more analytics jobs”

..he needs to be asked if he has had an aneurysm because nothing here makes any sense.

The US already has plenty of science and too many science workers, as we cover in the article How The H1-Bs Are Pushing Out Domestic US Workers of IT and STEM. The H1-B and other foreign worker programs have thoroughly depressed wages in STEM fields.

Billionaires, be it Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, or Steve Ballmer, repeatedly show how sycophants must surround them because they feel so comfortable making false statements. They expect to know nothing about topics and never be called out on it.

Eric The Golden Pinocchio Recipient

Eric also receives a Golden Pinocchio Award for claiming that “everyone agrees in both parties” that we need more H1-B visas. Corrupt politicians on the H1-Bs lobbies payroll indeed agree — as we cover in the article What Politicians are Co-Sponsoring of the H.R.1044 IT Immigration Bill? But that is not everyone on both parties. For example, Bernie Sanders opposes the H1-B program, as we cover in the article Why Bernie Sanders Opposes the H1-B Program. (of course, Bernie Sanders is an independent who happens to run for President in the Democratic party). However, the fact that corrupt elites in both parties support something does not make it good for the public — obviously.

Once the topic switches from politicians in the parties — who are paid by Big Tech, the support for H1-B programs is relatively weak; what is true, or what Eric Schmidt can say, is that billionaires and companies making excessive margins on H1-B as well as politicians that take money from the H1-B program “all agree” that there should be more H1-B. That isn’t easy to disagree.

Eric Schmidt’s Track Record

Just because Eric Schmidt lied this one time does not necessarily mean he lies all the time. (hint: he does) Let us look at the emails between him and Steve Jobs when Steve Jobs asked him to stop recruiting people illegally out of Apple.

From: Steve Jobs
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007
To: Eric Schmidt
Subject: Google Recruiting from Apple

Eric,

I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this.

Thanks,

And Eric’s response.

Steve

From Eric Schmidt
Date: March 9, 2007
To: Steve Jobs
Subject: Google recruiters calling into Apple – isolated incident

Steve, as a followup we investigated the recruiter’s actions and she violated our policies. Apologies again on this and I’m including a portion of the email I received from our head of recruiting. Should this ever happen again please let me know immediately and we will handle. Thanks!! Eric – Sold Out

Hmm…so Eric Schmidt agreed not to hire from specific companies like Apple in return for those companies not hiring from Google- depressing the wages for workers in the Bay Area?

Did Apple and Google, Adobe, Intel, eBay, Pixar, Intuit, and Lucasfilm pay out $415 million to the Department of Justice for violating section 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (A puny $5,000 each for the 64,000 employees affected.) for this “non-poaching” scheme?

Yes, yes, they did.

Steve Jobs, you know, that nice cuddly innovator that everyone genuflects to? Here was his statement to Google regarding hiring Apple employees.

What a great guy and a decent human being. (quote above from San Jose Mercury News). Readers in the Bay Area should go and drop some flowers off at his grave. 

Donald Polden, emeritus professor of law at Santa Clara University and an adviser to the film, said in an interview this week that since Silicon Valley’s infamous no-poaching case, “now it’s much clearer that suppression of workers’ wages through anticompetitive agreements violate antitrust laws.” – San Jose Mercury News

The case description is as follows.

The case was filed on May 4, 2011 by a former software engineer at Lucasfilm and alleges violations of California’s antitrust statute, Business and Professions Code sections 16720 et seq. (the “Cartwright Act”); Business and Professions Code section 16600; and California’s unfair competition law, Business and Professions Code sections 17200, et seq. Focusing on the network of connections around former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the Complaint alleges “an interconnected web of express agreements, each with the active involvement and participation of a company under the control of Steve Jobs…and/or a company that shared at least one member of Apple’s board of directors.” The alleged intent of this conspiracy was “to reduce employee compensation and mobility through eliminating competition for skilled labor.” – Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein

This video explains how the non-poaching scheme worked. 

Hmmm….is Eric someone Congress should be listening to?

It seems he has already been caught in a scheme to depress wages, and H1-B is just another program designed to depress wages. It is almost as if Eric Schmidt is interested in depressing wages. Now let us see…. the relationship between H1-B and other foreign visa programs and wages???

Conclusion

Eric Schmidt wants Google to be able to lobby for more H1-B visas, even though they only hire 1 out of 1000 applications and have more applicants than they know what to do with.

This illustrates the depth of cynicism of tech companies and is mirrored with Bill Gates as we cover in the article How Bill Gates Lied and Introduced the Defunct Common Core to Falsify Skills Shortage. Eric Schmidt will tell any lie at any time that he needs to and is the last person, due to his financial bias, and history of being caught lying, that Congress should be listening to on H1-B or any other topic.

References

*https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/24/when-rules-dont-apply-did-silicon-valley-tech-giants-learn-from-no-poaching-antitrust-case/

Excellent quote on just how puny the payout was, and how financially, the tech companies were not even made to pay a small fraction of the financial damage done to tech workers.

In a letter he wrote to the judge he said the settlement represents only one-tenth of the $3 billion in compensation (emphasis added) the 64,000 workers could have made if the defendants had not colluded. – San Jose Mercury News

https://www.theverge.com/2012/1/27/2753701/no-poach-scandal-unredacted-steve-jobs-eric-schmidt-paul-otellini

https://www.whenrulesdontapply.com/

This excellent video explains how tech workers resist unions. A major component is that workers are deceived into thinking that they are future owners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

*https://www.amazon.com/Sold-Out-Billionaires-Bipartisan-Crapweasels/dp/1501115944/

“Complaint, Hariharan v. Adobe Systems Inc. et al” (PDF). Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein. Retrieved 2013-12-02.

*https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/06/19/judge-questions-settlement-in-silicon-valley-no-poaching-case/