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Apple's Jonathan Ive Says Immigration Vital For UK Firms (bbc.com) 123

The UK must keep its doors open to top talent from around the world if its technology firms are to thrive, Apple's chief designer has told the BBC. An anonymous reader shares the article: Sir Jonathan Ive, who has just been appointed Chancellor of the Royal College of Art, also said that technology hubs like Silicon Valley had a "tremendous cultural diversity". Some technology firms fear they may lose access to talent after Brexit. "That general principle [on access] is terribly important for creating a context for multiple companies to grow and in a healthy way explore and develop new products and new product types," Sir Jonathan told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Sir Jonathan said the UK had a "fabulous tradition of design education", but that it needed to do more to become a technology hub on a par with Silicon Valley in California, where the likes of Apple, Facebook and Google are based. "I think Silicon Valley has infrastructures to support start-up companies... ranging from technological support through to funding," he said. "And there is the sense that failure isn't irreversible, so very often people will work on an idea, and there isn't the same sense of stigma when one idea and perhaps one company doesn't work out."
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Apple's Jonathan Ive Says Immigration Vital For UK Firms

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  • Because... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:09PM (#54486845)

    ...Brits and Americans are just way too fucking stupid. WE NEED INDIANS!

    • When... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:48PM (#54487077)

      ...are these people going to stop pretending it's about talent?

      It's not. It's about cheap, compliant, captive labor.

      Disagree? YOU explain why these so-fucking-smart people need to be trained for six months by the locals they are replacing.

      • Re:When... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @05:16PM (#54487251)

        ...are these people going to stop pretending it's about talent?

        It's not. It's about cheap, compliant, captive labor.

        Disagree? YOU explain why these so-fucking-smart people need to be trained for six months by the locals they are replacing.

        This might be the case in the USA, but in the UK the non-EU skilled migrant system is pretty tough to get through. It costs an employer a lot of money so it would be hard to see how anyone could save money doing this, especially with the EU labour pool readily accessible (for now).

        I also find it quite sad that immigration has become all about some sort of global-economic-struggle. I came to the UK from NZ simply because I wanted to travel and experience new things. Frankly, since sterling crashed after the GFC my income in NZ would be higher than here (and my house would certainly be much nicer), so I'm certainly not hear for the economics. Many more British citizens go back the other way to enjoy a quieter pace of life and for me each country offers a very different experience and I think it is great that brits want to go enjoy living in NZ.

        I don't deny that immigration can be used to suppress local wages, but for many young people it is fundamentally just part of experiencing all that the world has to offer. Life is short. Who would want to hole up in their backyard until they die?

        • This might be the case in the USA, but in the UK the non-EU skilled migrant system is pretty tough to get through.

          EU passports are like arseholes. Everyone has got one ;-).

      • Well, they've been telling us for decades to keep our heads down and our mouths shut because if we get out of line, they'll offshore the lot of us, and we're lucky we even have a job, so smile and enjoy your Saturdays in the office. Now they're saying that they need to import more people from overseas to work onshore because... offshore doesn't work? Yeah, something fishy is going on here.
      • I agree. Why do they need a 6 month training session. When I start jobs I'm basically thrown in and left alone.
      • Better get Elon Musk kicked out of the USA then, he's a damn immigrant
      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        If it were about talent, then you'd reduce the number who come in on the visa, and also reduce the number that are kicked out by the visa retiring. It makes *no* sense to kick someone out who you brought in for his talent when you say you have a shortage of talent.

        Really, it's just a program to facilitate offshoring.

        Now I've worked with a number of H-1Bs, and some of them really are very talented and skilled, and bring a lot of value to the country. But others have pretty much rudimentary, commodity skills

      • Indentured servants are really good at saying "yes sir!". That's pretty important when you're an inbred halfwit MBA whose entire career is based on nepotism.
      • ...are these people going to stop pretending it's about talent?

        As soon as you stop conflating "foreign talent" with "H1-B outsourcing".

        There are two different types of foreigners. But keep putting them together, you're only contributing to the brain drain of America.

      • It's not. It's about cheap, compliant, captive labor.

        I think of myself as political left and pro immigration and what not. But you are a 100% right here.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Immigration is a great way to bring in top talent, but it requires a merit-based approach to immigration. In the US, it's what H-1B was supposed to do, and would he helpful if it was still used properly. The problem for Europe is that so many of the immigrants are refugees and from other places where terrorists groups are based. By all means, open the borders to highly skilled immigrants who can help to grow the UK's industries. However, there are too many Muslims entering the country from places like Libya

    • Domestic Help is there, but it is too expensive, so we must import cheap third world labor in order to "compete".

      This is the real reason they cry for imported labor.

      • its amazing how people will search for a bargain in the shops then complain that wages are lower - if people paid the real prices for things then better wages will be paid, driving down prices means driving down costs and the largest cost to an employer is the employee. And, the employment market is also a market so people will search out the bargains so its either market economy or a communist one.
        • But then every one's market should consist of the (entire world), not just the technology market. What technology companies have done is the equivalent of complaining that they don't want to shop in any of the stores available to them, so they want the stores to give them prices from over seas. None of us have that flexibility. Therefore it is putting me at odds with my own economy.
    • you've been reading the xenophobic daily mail/express too often
  • by Anonymous Coward

    There's a impartial opinion... no self interest there at all!

  • Or... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ConaxConax ( 1886430 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:16PM (#54486893)

    How about Apple trains up some Brits?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      It's not about training it's about paying 15 cents to the dollar

      or 15 shillings to the quidler or whatever fake money you use

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      According to Slashdot you can't train good engineers and developers, people are just born with an interest that is absolutely essential.

      Or does that only apply to women.

      • Haha, that's such a silly sentiment. Clearly everybody is as good as anybody else at anything, regardless of how long one person has been doing it or how interested one person is in it. Unless one of the people is an "underrepresented minority", in which case that person is automatically a thousand times better than a despicable white man, but has been kept down by oppressive thumb of the patriarchy.
    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Oh, well, sign me up for the genius class, once you figure out how to teach people to be geniuses.

      Until then, if you want to become world class, your best bet is to work with the best in the world.

      In practical terms, it means if you want a world-building team you don't necessarily have to hunt across the world for every member; but you do want to build it around the most accomplished people you can find, wherever they might be. Then you let them "train up" the talented locals, rather than have ordinary mor

    • How about Apple trains up some Brits?

      The type of talent he's talking about is not the type that is internally trained. It's the type that brings external ideas. This is not low cost H1-Bs being talked about here, or idiots pretending to be a Genius at some bar.

  • by geehzer67 ( 4888899 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:34PM (#54487001)
    With only $250+ billion sitting in offshore accounts, the big brains at apple can't figure out how to train the locals, either in the public school system or in house. Back in the day, HP, IBM, ATT, GE, Ford, blah, blah, blah, did this for pretty much their entire work force. Seemed to work OK post-war through Reagan/Thatcher. I wonder what's changed? /s
    • They don't want to train someone that isn't controlled easily enough.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      The next step is to bring any worker in from a low cost, poor nation and pay them a different nation wage in the new nation for a short time.
      "Going posted" (Jul 7th 2016)
      http://www.economist.com/news/... [economist.com]
      "While French workers command high wages under the country’s sectoral labour agreements.. "
      "... contracted in their home countries to work in another European Union country"
      .."“posted workers”"..
      "need only receive the local minimum, under EU law. "
    • the big brains at apple can't figure out how to train the locals

      Of course they can "train" locals. But if they "train" people they lose the very thing that they are promoting here: diversity. Sometimes companies need to hire someone they can train their way, sometimes they specifically are looking for someone trained by someone else. Sometimes they are looking for someone specifically trained in another country.

      Knowledge diversity is very powerful.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Education budgets in the UK have been cut for years now, with the Tories promising a further 7% cut on per-pupil spending. The UK is not the place you look for talent any more.

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @04:50PM (#54487087)

    Apple loves to tell everyone how to run their society but then they go and dodge taxes which are a fundamental underpinning of any modern society. I think Apple needs to pay up or shut the fuck up.

    • But how can society survive without their shiny shiny?
    • ...but then they go and dodge taxes which are a fundamental underpinning of any modern society.

      Yes indeed, dodging taxes has become the fundamental underpinnings of any modern society.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Apple is making excellent business. And it does so with high-level government support. Maybe you voted for the wrong people?

    • Apple loves to tell everyone how to run their society but then they go and dodge taxes which are a fundamental underpinning of any modern society.

      When you say "dodge taxes", you are implying that they are doing something illegal not paying taxes.

      If that were the case, then I'd think they'd be under many a lawsuit.

      If they are following the law to keep their money from the tax man (like any sane person or company would do)....then there's not problem.

      If you don't like the tax laws, change them...but don'

      • If they are following the law to keep their money from the tax man (like any sane person or company would do)....then there's not problem.

        Spoken like a true sociopath.

      • Pardon me, brother, can you spare a couple hundred million dollars? I need to change some badlaws, but it seems I've lost my wallet and can't afford to buy even one congressman, much less a judge.
    • Apple loves to tell everyone how to run their society but then they go and dodge taxes which are a fundamental underpinning of any modern society. I think Apple needs to pay up or shut the fuck up.

      Maybe you should complain to your local government for writing tax laws that allow them to do just that.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @05:44PM (#54487425)

    I used to be in favor more more lax immigration laws, but now I've changed course and decided that all immigration needs to be cut off completely, thanks to Jonathan Ive. Since he's come out publicly in favor of immigration, and I utterly despise his work, I'll now be forced to vote against politicians who are pro-immigration. Good job, Johnny.

    Seriously, though, these corporate fools really should just shut their mouths, because they likely don't help build public support for their positions when they blab their personal opinions so publicly, and can even hurt their companies. How many people stopped buying from various companies like Barilla when their egotistical CEOs publicly proclaimed their opposition to gay marriage, for instance? How many people stopped shopping at Hobby Lobby when they outed themselves as Christian crusaders against contraceptives for their employees?

    • Why should health insurance pay for birth control? Serious question.

      • 1. Because it's a whole lot cheaper than paying for a hospital delivery, and then for health care for a kid.

        2. Because we as a society decided that that should be part of regular healthcare, just like other preventive measures like regular GP visits, and nonsensical religious reasons aren't sufficient to deny this to people who aren't of your religion. If you don't like it, then don't hire employees, or lobby instead for single-payer healthcare so the government is paying for it instead of the employer. O

        • 1. Because it's a whole lot cheaper than paying for a hospital delivery, and then for health care for a kid.

          I don't disagree, but interesting point is that they refused to pay a dime for my vasectomy. I tried the same logic.

          Interesting that Obamacare didn't change that. Now, why would that be?

          • I'm guessing because the GOP would have objected loudly, since they don't believe in sterilization. Contraceptives at least are pretty easily reversed: just stop taking or using them. Procedures like vasectomies and tubal ligations require surgery to reverse, and have a significant rate of failure (with the reversing part).

  • He only "supports immigration" as long as it provides a steady stream of desperate, captive, fly-by-night labor.
    He doesn't support it when it provides people that want to become hard-working citizens that assimilate in a new country.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Because washing pieces of little girls out of your hair is a small price to pay for more immigration!

  • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday May 25, 2017 @09:05PM (#54488417) Journal
    Telling schools what employment skills the other nations schools "teach" students so UK students can have the same advantages?
    Tell UK universities what they are missing every year that makes some graduate from another nation so vital for a company every decade?
    What is the UK lacking that poor nations with no funding can do so well every decade that no school or university in the UK can do?
    The UK has had decades of the best teaching staff to educate teachers, the best teachers for its schools and universities, the language skills are equal, good health care, good nutrition, clean water, no national service issues to remove a section of a population from quality education.
    UK students would have the same testing averages as most over advance nations ranging from the best in the world to average.
    Nothing is really holding back UK education on average every decade. People graduate in the UK at a good rate every decade with merit based course work.
    Workers in the UK should graduate from school and university with all the skills to fill any job in the UK. The UK has the ability to support its own people from vocational to very advanced university vocations.

    Is the UK lacking in math teaching? Engineering? Computer experts? When does the average person in the UK not gain the needed skills or fail to graduate?
    The UK pushed a lot of advanced networked computer hardware and quality educational programming languages into all its schools, giving some computer access per student going back to the 1980's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    Something other nations could not afford to do.
    Thats generations of computer and math course work for most UK students other nations could never afford on average.

    What did UK education system so lack every decade that very average poor nations workers now have skills to "bring" to the UK?
    • Except this isn't about anyone lacking anything other than educational diversity.

      The only thing here to fix is exchange programs that allow UK people to actually get trained overseas in other ways. The people in the UK aren't dumb or poorly trained. They aren't lacking education.

      However companies that employ only locals trained only in one way end up with a very key weakness: a monoculture without any technical diversity. I say this as someone who beat a far more educated and more qualified person local at

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not just "poor nations", a lot of immigration is from other first world countries with much better educations systems than the UK. The UK isn't ranked all that highly in global terms... And there are just not enough graduates to meet demand. Plus, sometimes immigrants have skills, e.g. language, that it is very hard to find in the UK. How many electrical engineers who can speak fluent Mandarin or German do you think are in the job market right now?

      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Re "The UK isn't ranked all that highly in global terms" what is the UK missing out on then?
        The language issue is not that complex. A lot of people in the UK got exposed to rather good language lessons over the decades.
        The UK was able to translate most of the German Enigma material in ww2 into English without too much trouble.
        The UK used Hong Kong to intercept a lot of material from China and again found it had skilled translators to work on the material collected over decades.
        Complex French and East/W
  • But most of those people we get have no qualifications, and those who have qualifications, are screened and accepted into the US or Canada.

  • by CODiNE ( 27417 )

    technology hubs like Silicon Valley had a "tremendous cultural diversity".

    Tremendous cultural diversity = women, gays and asians... and don't forget the eclectic white men! Burning Man attendees, that's another culture right?

    Not many blacks + hispanics tho... they must be underrepresented in California.

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