Immigrant entrepreneurs create employment opportunities which strengthen the US economy. America’s prosperity depends on the dreams of the immigrants as they are contributing in some way or the other to the economic growth of America. Most successful immigrants evolve into millionaires and it is mainly because the immigrants make good use of the available opportunities. On the other hand, the immigrants consider such opportunities as a gift from God.
Many individuals in the US accept immigrant entrepreneurship. Such giant entrepreneurs include Sergey Brin of Google, Andrew Grove of Intel, Jerry Yang of Yahoo and Pierre Omidyar of eBay and many others involved in science and technology businesses. They are quietly making a difference and are creating nearly half a million jobs for the people in the US and are bringing forth an income of more than $50 billion, to the US.
Many immigrants moved to the US for long periods of time in order to escape persecution, create economic opportunities for their families and many to pursue the American Dream. Some individuals who moved to the US to pursue their American dream have become successful entrepreneurs. Some of America’s most reputed companies such as Google, Intel, eBay, Proctor & Gamble, Pfizer and Yahoo! were founded by immigrants.
One such significant immigrant is Pierre Omidyar, the Founder of the eBay. Omidyar, an Iranian-American entrepreneur and a citizen of France. He was born in Paris and his parents were Iranian immigrants. Omidyar immigrated to the US with his family when he was 6 years old. He was brought up in Washington D.C. He began his career with Claris, a subsidiary of Apple computers after he was graduated in computer science from the Tufts University. In the year 1991, Pierre became the co-founder the Ink Development, which was a pen-based computing start-up. It was later known as E-commerce company and then as e-shop.
Pierre became the founder of eBay when he was on a holiday. He developed the computer code for eBay, the super-brand auction site. He officially launched it on the 4th of September 1995, Labor Day. When he first launched the site it was free but later charges were introduced to meet the internet expenses. Jeffery Skoll joined eBay in 1996 and they launched a public offering and both of them evolved as billionaires. Currently Pierre owns a share of more that $2.65 billion. The Omidyar network with Pam, his wife is another achievement. This network is a charitable investment firm, which is dedicated to support the opportunities for people to improve their lives. This network which was established in 2004, is committed towards for-profit and non-profit companies to encourage participation of individuals across multiple investment areas, such as micro finance and social media.
Jerry Yang, an immigrant from Taiwan is the co-founder of “Yahoo!”, a multimedia company which provides various internet communication services such as email, search, etc. Jerry Yang moved to San Jose at the age of 10 along with his mother and brother. He started working with his fellow graduate student David Filo at Stanford, to launch Yahoo! and both of them did not complete their degrees. Though they had not completed their degrees, they were successful in launching Yahoo. At present the value of Yahoo! is more than $43 billion.
Hence, Immigration and entrepreneurship are viewed as the two central themes in the US history. Both, immigration and entrepreneurship are interconnected closely. The US developed a strong culture of entrepreneurship and it became an example of an immigration country in the 19th century. The worth of entrepreneurship is accepted and the views towards immigration have changed considerably. Though the immigration policies have become more restrictive, the interconnection between immigration and economic growth is still strong. Hence, immigration is accepted as a rich source of entrepreneurship.