Vivek Wadhwa has become a leading voice in debates over technology policy, particularly with respect to entrepreneurship, innovation and immigration. Wadhwa holds academic appointments at Singularity University, Stanford University, and Duke University, and last year was named to Foreign Policy magazine’s list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. An Indian-born U.S. citizen, Wadhwa worked at Credit Suisse First Boston earlier in his career, where he helped develop technology for creating computer-aided software-writing systems. He would later found software firm Relativity Technologies.
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In his recent book, The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent, Wadhwa describes how the U.S. is now telling the best immigrants to go home, due to a lack of immigration visas. As a result of this “reverse brain drain,” as Wadhwa and his colleagues call it, highly skilled workers and professionals are increasingly looking to other global markets to locate their businesses. “We’re seeing a boom in technology entrepreneurship in India, China, and even Russia, because the U.S. won’t let people stay here,” Wadhwa recently told TIME.