Bill Gates has been busted in a big fat lie and we've got the statistics to prove it.
Last year, Microsoft founder Bill Gates told Washington Post columnist David Broder that the types of people they were bringing in on H-1B Visas, are:
Highly paid, highly qualified individuals. Salaries for these jobs at Microsoft start at about $100,000 a year.
Their counterparts can be hired more cheaply in China or India, he said, but Microsoft does 85 percent of its research and development work in the United States because it wants its computer scientists interacting directly with its program managers and its marketing people on its own campus.
Gates was pounding the halls of Congress at time of this interview, demanding more H-1B Visas along with the ITAA.
Unfortunately for Bill Gates, when a Corporation sponsors a green card, they must publish the actual salary along with the application.
From the graph above and the table below, only 3.3%, or 40 employees, of the 1202 total green card applications submitted by Microsoft had wages above $100k.
In fact, more applications, 8.3%, or 92 employees, were paid salaries below $60k. Most of the jobs titles of the 1202 applications were Software Engineer, an entry level job indicator.
The median salary for all was $71k, well below the $100k that Bill Gates touted in his claim of a great shortage of "talent" in America (read cheap, controllable and young).
The job title "Software Engineer" is an entry level job position, such a role would never be given to the level of expertise that Bill Gates claims he is obtaining through his cheap labor H-1B Visa.
| Salary | # of Emp. | Cum. % |
| 50000 | 0 | 0.00% |
| 55000 | 8 | 0.67% |
| 60k | 92 | 8.32% |
| 65k | 166 | 22.13% |
| 70k | 251 | 43.01% |
| 75k | 270 | 65.47% |
| 80k | 180 | 80.45% |
| 85k | 99 | 88.69% |
| 90k | 46 | 92.51% |
| 95k | 23 | 94.43% |
| 99.99k | 27 | 96.67% |
| 105k | 19 | 98.25% |
| 110k | 8 | 98.92% |
| 115k | 2 | 99.08% |
| 120k | 4 | 99.42% |
| 125k | 3 | 99.67% |
| 130k | 1 | 99.75% |
| 135k | 0 | 99.75% |
| >135k | 3 | 100.00% |
My question is, how come we, the bloggers, have to do David Broder's, Dean of Political Reporters as claimed by Tim Russert, job and research the actual facts versus publish the propaganda spewing from Bill Gates mouth as he demands Congress meet his cheap labor vehicle demands?
Is it because when Bill Gates, the richest guy in the world, demands more cheap labor vehicles, he gets them, like a feudal lord would if he demands a head on a platter?
As I have said on this blog in the past. Graphs can tell the story the producer want to tell. And in this case it sounds like a Bill Gates bashing.
I don't have the statistics right now, the IEEE-USA often does, but this diary's focus is that Bill Gates was claiming H-1Bs were being hired in at 100k plus.
I also know that H-1Bs are routinely paid 18k less than
US citizens for the same job.
Because it was about his own company - and he should have known the facts - I feel safe calling him a liar. I don't use that word loosely.
Do the majority of H-1b workers make more or less than $100k a year? Gates said they earn more. The facts say that they earn less - in fact much less. Let's call a spade a spade and a liar a liar.
Why not set the minimum wage for H-1b holders to $100k since that is what Gates says they are all paid?
In my opinion, Bill Gates, like so many other "leaders" are "mis-leaders". I believe that closer scrutiny will show that Gates has been incorrectly characterised as a great technologist and innovator. Far from being an innovator, Gates is just shrewd, ruthless, and unprincipled corporate monopolist. The success of Microsoft has less to do with substance and more to do with marketing, monopoly and the ability to adapt ideas originating from outside M$.