From International Student to American Billionaire

Happy New Year! Does your 2017 New Year’s Resolution include becoming a billionaire?

If so, your first step is to study in the United States. Here, there are boundless career opportunities for international students. More than any other English-speaking study destination in the world, the United States offers the highest chances for an international student to become a billionaire!

Most international students think study in the United States means a few years of high school or college. Afterward one or two years of work experience under OPT (Optional Career Training) before returning to their home country. At Cogito, we encourage international students to consider long-term career plans in the United States. Since the US is the world’s leader in innovation and entrepreneurship.

For most international students arriving for their first semester in the US, founding the next Apple or Google may seem far away. But recent studies show that 21 out of 87 privately held US companies valued at 1 billion or more were founded by international students, and another 44 had an international student as a co-founder. In Silicon Valley, close to 60% of the top tech talent was foreign-born. Additionally, 50% of companies from Google to eBay have foreign co-founders.

These statistics may seem inaccessible but they have real effects. Meet famous American billionaires who started as international students:

Billionaire Elon Musk, Tesla and PayPal, SpaceX Founder.

Musk, born in South Africa, was interested in science fiction from an early age, building rockets and programming computers. He started college in Canada, but quickly realized his vision for an innovative company with a global impact could only be accomplished in the United States. American investors are far more receptive to new, often revolutionary ideas. Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, completing his bachelor’s degree in physics and economics.  In the US, he also met other international students ready to conquer the world. Of the six founders of PayPal, four came from different countries including Poland, China, and Ukraine!

Billionaire Michael Krieger, Co-founder of Instagram.

Krieger was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and came to the United States to attend Stanford University. He then landed himself a job using OPT status, which is a permit guaranteeing 1-2 years of work to every international student. He co-founded Instagram and, when the company went public, collected a significant fortune.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and Joanna Hoffman, one of the first employees and lead engineers at Apple and NeXT.

Brin is a Russian immigrant and Hoffman was a Polish student. Both were born overseas in communist countries and entered US classrooms speaking very little English. After 10 years of living in the US, they not only entered the two top engineering schools in the country. Brin graduated from Stanford and Hoffman from MIT—but also started to change the world around them and created jobs for their American peers. For every 100 international students that graduate from STEM programs and stay in the US, 262 jobs are created!

ABOUT E-2 VISA STATUS

The E-2 investor visa is a really powerful tool for international students who create companies. This American visa is a status that allows foreigners to enter and work in the US based on an investment they’re controlling. It is good for two years and renewable in two-year increments in perpetuity. In certain cases, E-2 can be renewed indefinitely, as long as the investor is running the business and it generates “more than enough revenue” to support the investor’s family. The E-2 visa also covers the investor’s spouse, as well as children under the age of 21.

Ready to start your entrepreneurship career in the United States? Follow our blog to learn how to enter America’s top universities for future entrepreneurs and how to land your first job in the US as an international student. Maybe one day you will become America’s next foreign-born billionaire!