Silicon Valley’s innovation is fueled by foreign workers with a record high two thirds of technology workers in the region born outside the U.S. and nearly a quarter coming from India, according to a new report.
Of tech workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher, 23% came from India and 18% from China, while 17% were born in California, according to the 2025 Silicon Valley Index produced by think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
The proportion of tech workers who are foreign born is substantially higher than the percentage of foreign-born Silicon Valley residents, which hit a record high of 41% in 2023, Joint Venture reported.
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“I think it does surprise a lot of people,” said Russ Hancock, Joint Venture’s CEO. “What we easily forget is that Silicon Valley is not an American phenomenon — it’s an international phenomenon. Silicon Valley was built by the best and the brightest coming from all quarters. Communities that draw on the whole world are communities that thrive.”
The number of science and engineering degrees conferred annually by Bay Area universities has grown 117% since 2002, with more than 21,500 science and engineering degrees earned locally in 2023.
That’s still far from enough to meet the needs of the tech industry, which created jobs that outstripped degrees from Bay Area schools by more than 20,000 from 2019 to 2023, Joint Venture reported.
Abundant venture capital — $69 billion invested in Silicon Valley and San Francisco in 2024, according to the index — adds another enticement for startup founders and budding entrepreneurs from around the world, who need funding to pursue their innovation dreams, Hancock said.
Venture capitalist Anis Uzzaman, CEO of San Jose-based Pegasus Tech Ventures and chair of the annual Startup World Cup, says foreign-born tech workers provide “key ingredients” for Silicon Valley startups and established companies.
“They bring diverse perspectives, world-class talent, unique problem-solving approaches, and global market insights,” Uzzaman was quoted as saying by siliconvalley.com.
The Valley’s reputation as the world’s leading technology hub and “a place where breakthrough things happen” plays a powerful role in drawing talent from around the globe, said Sean Randolph, senior director of the Economic Institute at the Bay Area Council, which represents businesses including major Silicon Valley tech companies Google, Meta and Apple.
“A lot of people want to be a part of that,” Randolph was quoted as saying. “If you look at the quality of educational programs in California or the United States, the skills level of people coming out of high school just in math, it’s not there,” he said. “The system as a whole is just not producing the number and quality of graduates that the technology community needs. If it did, they’d be hired.”
Some 45% of Bay Area tech startups are founded by people from other countries, with a substantial number launching their companies after graduating from U.S. universities, according to research by the Bay Area Council. Many foreign founders start at established tech companies in the region, Randolph said.
More than half of America’s most highly valued tech companies were launched by immigrants or children of immigrants, including Apple, Google, Meta, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, Netfix and NVIDIA, according to the 2018 Internet Trends Report by tech forecaster Mary Meeker.
Many come to Silicon Valley chasing opportunities not available in their home countries, according to Pratima Joglekar of Fremont, a former advocate for foreign workers on visas, cited by siliconvalley.com.
“You study in the U.S. and then you try to work for one of the big companies or you try to do your own startup and sell it or get it acquired by a bigger company,” said Joglekar, 40, who works in a law firm and is married to an India-born software engineer employed as a manager at Google. “That’s the dream.”
Foreign workers enter the region “through multiple windows,” Randolph was quoted as saying. “There’s a very large number of incubators, accelerators and facilitating organizations here in the region whose primary purpose is to connect entrepreneurs from other countries into the innovation system here.”
Many Bay Area tech companies are multinational and transfer foreign workers into their local offices, Randolph added.
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India-born systems analyst Mebi Babu was transferred in 2010 with her husband by their Ireland-headquartered employer from India to Illinois. The company moved them to Pleasanton in 2015, and in 2020 she took her current job with Santa Clara County. “I feel blessed,” Babu, of San Ramon, was cited by siliconvalley.com as saying. “There were a lot more opportunities here that I could explore.”
Whether a shortage of U.S. tech workers exists has been hotly debated for years, with no conclusive data to support either side of the argument.
Native-born talent on its own cannot meet the industry’s needs, Uzzaman said.
“We’re consistently short in specialized areas like AI, cybersecurity, and advanced software engineering, often by thousands of skilled professionals annually,” Uzzaman said. “Immigration isn’t a replacement, but a complement to native-born talent. Both are needed to maintain Silicon Valley’s role as a global innovation hub.”