Silicon Valley's Secret 4-Week Visa with Lisa Wehden at Plymouth Street

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Jul 11, 2024

Lisa Wehden, Founder of Plymouth, talks about the O1A visa for talented individuals, the challenges of US immigration, and her unique journey. She discusses raising grant money, breaking into Silicon Valley, and the importance of talent in AI development.

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INSIGHT

US Immigration Lottery Limits Talent

The US immigration system relies heavily on a lottery for the H-1B visa, limiting access for top global talent.
The O-1A visa is a powerful alternative with no cap, allowing extraordinary technologists to enter the US more reliably.

INSIGHT

Why Immigrants Make Great Founders

Immigrants tend to be excellent founders due to their high risk tolerance and resilience.
They often have no fallback options, which drives relentless innovation and optimism.

INSIGHT

O-1A Visa Advantages Explained

The O-1A visa is uncapped, faster to process, and has flexible eligibility criteria.
Many technologists qualify but are unaware; improving eligibility is possible by meeting 3 of 8 accessible criteria.

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Lisa Wehden is the Founder and CEO of Plymouth Street, making fast and simple immigration for technologists. We go deep on the broken US immigration system, how its holding back US innovation, and the secret 0-1A Visa you can get in as fast as four weeks.

Lisa lived in a sawmill while building her first climate tech startup, and we go inside that journey, giving the VC money she raised back to start Plymouth, raising grants to fund it, and how she broke into Silicon Valley as an outsider.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro (04:51) The state of US immigration (09:26) Why immigrants are good founders (11:43) The secret O-1A Visa (12:18) Why the O-1A is easier to get (16:54) Founders that have gotten their O-1A (20:00) Getting a Visa in four weeks with Plymouth (22:01) The 500-page, physical paper Visa application (25:57) Lisa’s US immigration COVID hobby (27:58) Living in a Sawmill building a climate tech startup (30:59) Giving VCs their money back (32:19) Joining Interact in SF (33:51) Raising grant money instead of VC (34:40) Becoming a paralegal to learn the industry (37:24) The Plymouth 100 community (39:20) How Lisa raised grant funding from Eric Schmidt and Tyler Cowen (43:55) Talent is the bottleneck to AI development (46:04) How to break into Silicon Valley as an outsider (52:43) Hiring on hopes and fears (55:31) "Write it down, make it happen" (56:45) Benefits of doing a calendar audit (1:01:54) Anyone can be an entrepreneur (1:04:53) Why Lisa doesn’t work from her phone (1:06:38) How to fix the US immigration system

More on Plymouth Street: https://www.plymouthstreet.com/

Referenced:

Interact: https://joininteract.com

Lisa’s 0-1 Visa Guide: https://lisa-wehden.medium.com/a-guide-to-applying-for-the-o-1-visa-for-extraordinary-individuals-8ca5f22ff86b

Writing a forwardable email intro: https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intro-email-14e2827716a1

Where to find Lisa:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisawehden

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-wehden-aa111385/

Where to find Turner:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/

Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/