A somewhat dated article (November 2022) reminded me of the importance of the subject. The article published by Le monde, “All Immigrants Are Entrepreneurs”, is for subscribers only and I can only quote the beginning:

A recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP, 2022) on the origin of the creators of “unicorns”, these young companies not listed on the stock exchange and valued at more than a billion dollars (960 million euros) , shows not the importance but the predominant role of immigrants in the creation of the latter. In the United States, more than half of them (319 out of 582, or 55%) were founded or co-founded by one or more immigrants. If we take into account not only immigrants but also their children, this percentage rises to 64%. And when we broaden the spectrum by adding non-founding immigrants who occupy a key management position in the company (CEO or vice-president of technology), it reaches 80%. Immigration does play a massive role in the success of entrepreneurship in the United States.

This is all the more so since the analysis of these 319 companies highlights that 58% of them had one or more immigrant founders and no native founders, that 28% had a majority of immigrant founders or an equal number of immigrant and native founders , and that only 14% had a majority of native founders. As the study puts it: “Given that each co-founder contributes to the success of a start-up, it seems likely that none of these billion-dollar companies with at least one immigrant founder would exist or would not have been created in the United States if the foreign-born founder had not been allowed to come to the United States.”

The topic of migrants is not new here. Check the tag Immigrant and in particular:
– March 2016 : Immigrants and Unicorns.
– June 2013 : AnnaLee Saxenian, Migration, Silicon Valley, and Entrepreneurship.

I will not make long comments except to thank Philippe Mustar for his article and indeed to insist on the importance of migrants in the world of startups.