Investor Jason Calacanis: The U.S. Wins by Assimilating Top Immigrants
All-In co-host and angel investor Jason Calacanis posted that the U.S. was built by the world's most hungry and talented immigrants, and is also built for the next generation of similar individuals; its foundation is human rights and personal freedom, in contrast to communism and socialism. He wrote: The U.S. wins by assimilating the exceptional and maximizing human potential through personal sovereignty.
This aligns with his repeated phrasing in recent years: the U.S. was built by immigrants and for immigrants, while advocating for closed borders and a structured point system. In April 2026, he wrote: Being born in the U.S. makes one an American, and the country is built by the most driven immigrants and their willing-to-assimilate next generation. In July, he referred to Sundar Pichai, the Indian-born CEO of Alphabet, as an outstanding American and thanked Trump for supporting high-skilled immigration, suggesting that Stephen Miller treat immigration reform as a "second act."
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to change the H-1B lottery to a wage-based selection starting in fiscal year 2027, favoring high-salary applicants. Pew data shows that Alphabet employed nearly 5,550 H-1B workers in 2023. Calacanis invests in about 100 startups each year through Launch, and his talent stance is directly linked to the cost structure of the tech industry's engineering pipeline.
In market mechanisms, the buyers are tech companies and founders needing high-skilled visas, while the sellers are policy alliances that tie the narrative of assimilation to border control. The event is driven by public posts, with funding and hiring shifting from random lotteries to wage sorting; the beneficiaries are large companies that can offer higher salaries to secure slots, while the pressured parties are those relying on lotteries for entry through lower-salary outsourcing pathways.
Source: Public information
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Calacanis compresses immigration history into a selection formula: hunger plus talent, plus assimilation. Personal sovereignty is framed as an operating system opposed to socialism, used to simultaneously support high-skilled influx and border closure. This reflects a common dual track in Silicon Valley: wanting top global engineers while rejecting those who cannot be priced within the company's compensation structure.
The capital pathway is that after changing H-1B from a lottery to wage selection, slots will concentrate more quickly in companies that can pay top salaries. He thanks Trump and names Miller, treating political permission as part of the talent supply chain. Launch requires hundreds of checks each year, needing individuals who can assimilate into the startup equity culture rather than just the incremental general labor market.
Similar structures include post-war U.S. absorption of European scientists, the 1990s H-1B expansion supporting the software industry, and Canada's point system turning human capital into a scoreable commodity. Policies are transitioning from quantity control to price control, with visa pricing power shifting from random to salary-based.
Structurally, this represents a transfer of pricing power. The mechanism translates "who is hungrier and more assimilable" into who can secure slots under wage sorting; the discourse of personal sovereignty provides legitimacy for high-skilled capital influx while excluding groups that cannot be filtered by compensation.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Assimilation rhetoric often serves as a shell for high-skilled salary filtering.
- Maximizing personal sovereignty primarily benefits those whose potential can be priced by companies.
- Border closure and welcoming top immigrants can be managed by the same supply chain.