Reaction Wheel

If a great company shows up on my doorstep, I try to invest in it. If two great companies show up on my doorstep, I try to invest in both of them.

I think it’s pretty much agreed that at this point, the bottleneck in startup formation is not money, it’s great entrepreneurs and great teams. We’ve also pretty much settled that startups are the engine of job growth and innovation. If we had a way to increase the number of startups in this country, the entire country would benefit.

The Startup Visa does this and it just took a big step forward, with legislation introduced in the Senate. That’s great, but what it really means is that while the hard work may be over, the bruising work is yet to come. Now that this bill has a chance to become law, opponents will emerge to try and kill it. Nervous congresspeople will try to avoid taking a stand on something as controversial as “immigration” (no matter the uncontroversial merits of this particular bill.) We need to let them know we want this to pass.

Brad Feld and Paul Graham did the hard work, now it’s our turn. Luckily, our work isn’t so hard: go to the Startup Visa site, it has a tool to tweet your congresspeople about the bill.

I can’t think of a single rational reason this bill is not a win for everyone. But unless we proactively push our elected representatives to pass it, chances are it will get lost in the twisty corridors of the Capitol, as so many good ideas do. So, go, now, and support it!