How Indian foreigners ran Silicon Valley's biggest fraud

Philip Greenspun explains how importing foreign engineers has corrupted Silicon Valley:

Bad Blood, the authoritative book on the rise and fall of Theranos, describes American- and British-born engineers and scientists being fired for saying “the goal is too ambitious” or quitting when realizing this. Who replaced them? According to the book, almost all immigrants from India, either folks who’d recently completed a degree in the U.S. or coming over on H-1B visas, all managed by Ramesh Balwani, Elizabeth Holmes’s boyfriend.

During the “grand fraud” stage of Theranos, therefore, it was a primarily immigrant show except for the young impresaria.

Greenspun also explains what a disaster California has become.

His description parallels images of the Old South, where rich aristocrats ran profitable plantations, but the economy depended on millions of black slaves, and poor whites who were not much better off.

Today's California economy is based on rich elites importing cheap labor.