It was hard to fully understand the situation at first, but I wasn’t particularly concerned. The people we hire create so much value for our company that $100,000 is truly a rounding error.<\/p>\n
Our company is looking to expand in the US, and we plan to submit more H-1B petitions in the next lottery. One executive order will not change my belief that an organization’s success or failure is a function of its people.<\/p>\n
Do you have experience with the H-1B visa program? Business Insider wants to hear from you. Please fill out this\u00a0quick form<\/a>.<\/p>\n I’m relocating to the US to expand our business there<\/p>\n In 2018, a friend and former colleague and I started Metaview together, which uses AI to help recruiters be more productive.<\/p>\n We have so far raised around $50 million. There are between 30 and 40 people in our team: Roughly two-thirds are based in Europe and one-third in the US, but we’re aiming to make the ratio 50\/50 over the next six months.<\/p>\n Related stories<\/p>\n Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n We started the company in London, and opened our San Francisco office in August to tap into both talent markets.<\/p>\n I’m in the process of relocating there, while my cofounder will lead the London office. I went through the EB-1A visa process, and my petition was approved. Earlier this year, we tried to sponsor three H-1B visas, but only one was allotted in the lottery.<\/p>\n The $100,000 fee doesn’t put me off hiring H-1B workers<\/p>\n Before it became clear that the fee would only apply to new H-1B petitions, large companies<\/a> advised their H-1B employees not to leave the US and to immediately fly back if they were abroad.<\/p>\n When I first heard the news, my first question wasn’t “What can we do to not get impacted?” but “Where can I pay the $100,000 fee for my colleague?” so they could land in the US and get to work.<\/p>\n As time went on, it became clear that our employee wasn’t affected by the changes. They’re relocating as planned.<\/p>\n In a LinkedIn<\/a> post, I wrote that people could come work for us in San Francisco instead of moving to another country. It’s all very fresh, and no offers have been accepted yet, but we’ve been humbled by the thousands of candidates who’ve been in touch with us. <\/p>\n The H1-B visa change hasn’t changed our strategy to expand in the US<\/p>\n We spend so much time trying to attract talent, because when you’re building a company, you don’t have everything figured out. Every person who joins our company will be instrumental. A team of like-minded, ambitious people and their perspectives will generate new ideas. <\/p>\n Tajbakhsh said Metaview plans to make up to 50 new hires in the US next year.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Metaview<\/p>\n When you sum up the value created by people’s hard work, $100,000 just doesn’t matter. The only way to build anything meaningful that changes people’s lives is to have a world-class team \u2014 there’s no shortcut around that. Trying to save money on talent is the most irresponsible thing a founder could possibly do.<\/p>\n We’re planning to make up to 50 hires in the US in the next year, and I expect that we’ll be applying for around 24 H-1B visas in the next lottery. Financially, that seems completely possible to me, pulling from investment. As a company, we spend a large amount of our money on talent anyway, and so far our investors have been supportive.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/placeholder.png\")
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