I agree with @bennyjohnson that some of these men were the architects of Silicon Valley. But we should also be clear that Microsoft and these same leaders were the architects of American visa policy as we know it. That part is documented. When Congress wrote the H-1B visa in 1990, the draft cap was 25,000, and employers would have had to attest that they had actively recruited American workers and could not find any. Business lobbyists got the cap raised to 65,000 and got the recruitment language struck. What replaced it was the Labor Condition Application, a form where the employer attests to paying the prevailing wage. George H.W. Bush signed it on November 29, 1990. Congress raised the cap again to 115,000 in 1998, then to 195,000 in 2000. Microsoft was among the companies pushing for both. In March 2007, Bill Gates testified before the Senate HELP Committee. A senator asked him whether the cap should go to 200,000, or 300,000. Gates answered: "even though it may not be realistic, I don't think there should be any limit." He also told Congress we should encourage foreign students "to remain here when they finish their studies." Congress didn't act. So the work moved to the agencies. That November, Microsoft's top Washington lobbyist wrote to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, following up on a conversation at a private dinner. The pitch was to extend Optional Practical Training, the program that lets foreign graduates work on a student visa. His argument was that "OPT exists solely by regulation." No act of Congress required. On April 8, 2008, DHS did it. The rule stretched OPT to 29 months. It was issued as an interim final rule, which means it took effect with no public comment period. OPT has no annual cap. Read the rule's own justification and you will find this citation: "Testimony of Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation." 73 FR 18944. It is public, and it is still the law students use today. He is right that there was not an H-1B in that room. The people in it built the pipeline that came after. They built the software. But Microsoft in particular also built the guest-worker pipeline that still sits on top of every American computer science class. They are not the company to be nostalgic about.