After spending most of my 20s in the skilled immigration process in the US, I had to spend many years away for my own sanity. I have recently gotten back into the details on it both in the US and also comparing it to the UK, Canada and other countries around the world.

The current process is fundamentally broken. I was discussing with a friend recently how we should see a “draft”/”free agent” system for extraordinary talent. What we need is to see a flip around brilliant academic, STEM and entrepreneurial talent seeing themselves as a scarce resource worth being fought over.

(a) Having a brilliant academic or founder come to your country can be existential. The difference between having the next Google or…not.

(b) Countries should compete for brilliant talent similar to how sports teams or sneaker companies compete for the next generation of athletes leaving college.

(c) Different countries have different strengths. Similar to Nike leveraging their history when they pitch a young athlete (who hasn’t dreamed of being a Nike sponsored athlete?) while an upstart brand might leverage pure economics, one country can pitch their history or emotional ties to a potential immigrant. In some cases, countries should make a concerted pitch: bringing together their iconic founders, entertainment figures similar to how a team might pitch a athlete to move to their city.

(d) At the end of the process, a founder gets a visa based on their ability and contingent on them staying in that country for some period of time/ contributing in some agreed-upon capacity.

What I describe above is of course laughably far from the current situation but that comes from a fundamental mispricing of what great talent can do for a country. I suspect the first set of countries to acknowledge and take advantage of this will reap real rewards.