It isn't about US vs. India immigration. It is about US immigration vs. the cost/effort of starting up a company in India (by an Indian citizen).
No one's competing at this point to make it easier for "young people from African countries... to emigrate to those other countries". The low-hanging fruit is people of Indian/Chinese/whatever origin returning to their homeland and starting up the next big thing there, instead of the US.
In general, I agree with the article in that the US immigration policy is rather arrogant. It may have made sense at some point in the past, but with the distribution of opportunities changing, the US needs to make a better sales pitch.
Would this argument make sense if we had a "Google clone"?
There's a market to be tapped, and they seem to be doing just that. One wonders why this is even possible, and if Groupon's dropped the ball in India. Regardless, they're running a business. What's not to like?
Many Silicon Valley start-ups are incredibly derivative, but a flip is still a flip.
It would have made more sense if it was not a country-specific clone of anything, i.e. if it really was a "next big thing", not a regional adaptation of what's big in the U.S.
Andy Grove's opinion made for an interesting, and imho persuasive, argument against this. Taking the laptop battery industry as an example - the outsourced manufacturers first made derivative products. Over time though, they achieved competence and finally mastery of the technology.
By opening the door and improving on what they had, even if it was a clone of something, they understood what had to be improved and finally dominated the market.
The Groupon-for-India would've hired 250 employees here?? I think it's more likely those jobs would've been created in India, either by SnapDeal or Groupon's India business operations, since that's where the market for that service is.
No one's competing at this point to make it easier for "young people from African countries... to emigrate to those other countries". The low-hanging fruit is people of Indian/Chinese/whatever origin returning to their homeland and starting up the next big thing there, instead of the US.
In general, I agree with the article in that the US immigration policy is rather arrogant. It may have made sense at some point in the past, but with the distribution of opportunities changing, the US needs to make a better sales pitch.