According to a new study by the Center for American Entrepreneurship, nearly 43% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or children of immigrants.
The data shows that immigrant-founded Fortune 500’s employ over 12.8m people worldwide and accounted for $5.3tn last year in global revenue.
It couldn’t have come at a better time
The study looks to show policymakers just how important immigrants are to the success of the US economy, at a time when the state of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (which currently protects 700k children) and visas for foreign founders are precarious at best.
And it’s even more common in the cream of the crop
In fact, the percentage of 1st or 2nd generation immigrants founders was significantly higher among the highest earning and largest Fortune 500 companies — making up 57% of the top 35 firms.
Who are we talking about here? Oh, just a bunch of no-namers like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Alphabet, Sergey Brin… oh, yeah, and Walt Disney.