Fourteen percent of American billionaires were not born in the United States. That is 125 people on the Forbes billionaire list, from 43 different countries, holding a combined $1.3 trillion in wealth. Ninety-three percent of them built that wealth from scratch, a higher self-made rate than U.S.-born billionaires, who sit closer to 75%.
Several of the companies currently reshaping AI, chips, search, and voice technology, worth a combined total of more than $10 trillion, are led by founders who weren’t born in the United States.
What almost every one of these stories shares is a visa path that took years, luck, or an employer’s willingness to sponsor. Student visa, then OPT, then an H-1B lottery that fewer than half of applicants win. What most of these founders never used, because it either didn’t exist yet or they didn’t know about it, is the visa built specifically for people who can already prove they are at the top of their field: the O-1A.
What the O-1 Visa Actually Does for Founders
The O-1A is a nonimmigrant visa for individuals with extraordinary ability in business, science, education, athletics, or the arts. Unlike the H-1B, it has no annual cap and no lottery. Unlike a green card petition, it can move in months, not years. And unlike most employment-based visas, a founder can self-petition through their own company, which means you don’t need an outside employer vouching for you.
To qualify, USCIS looks for evidence across a defined set of criteria, and a petitioner generally needs to meet at least three. These include:
- A record of original contributions of major significance to your field
- High salary or remuneration relative to others in the field
- Critical or leading roles for organizations with a distinguished reputation
- Authorship of scholarly work, or extensive press coverage of your work
- Judging the work of others, or nationally/internationally recognized awards
This is why founders are often better positioned for the O-1A than they realize. A funding round, a patent, a piece of press coverage, or a leadership role at a company with real traction can each become a piece of evidence, once you know to start documenting it early.
A Pattern That Repeats Across Immigrant Founders
Look at the immigration history behind most immigrant founders who built category-defining companies in the U.S., and a pattern shows up again and again: a student visa, then OPT, then years of uncertainty before the company’s success made the immigration question moot. Some arrive with no institutional backing at all and build their status alongside their company, one funding round and one piece of press coverage at a time. Others follow the academic pipeline for over a decade before their research or leadership translates into anything resembling a fast immigration path.
In nearly every case, the founder ends up taking a longer road than necessary, largely because the visa built for exactly their profile either didn’t exist in its current form or wasn’t something they knew to pursue.
Why This Matters Now
F-1 visa issuance dropped 36% in 2025, and the H-1B lottery keeps getting harder to win. The traditional pipeline that founders like Nadella and Su relied on is narrowing. The O-1A does not depend on that pipeline. It depends on what you have already built, which is exactly why more founders are turning to it as a first step rather than a fallback.
If you are a founder, researcher, or high-skill professional with results you can point to, the question worth asking is not whether your story matches a famous one. It’s whether the evidence you already have, funding, awards, press, leadership roles, quietly adds up to an O-1A case you haven’t built yet.
- A record of original contributions of major significance to your field
- High salary or remuneration relative to others in the field
- Critical or leading roles for organizations with a distinguished reputation
- Authorship of scholarly work, or extensive press coverage of your work
- Judging the work of others, or nationally/internationally recognized awards
This is why founders are often better positioned for the O-1A than they realize. A funding
round, a patent, a piece of press coverage, or a leadership role at a company with real traction
can each become a piece of evidence, once you know to start documenting it early.
A Pattern That Repeats Across Immigrant Founders
Look at the immigration history behind most immigrant founders who built category-defining
companies in the U.S., and a pattern shows up again and again: a student visa, then OPT, then
years of uncertainty before the company’s success made the immigration question moot. Some
arrive with no institutional backing at all and build their status alongside their company, one
funding round and one piece of press coverage at a time. Others follow the academic pipeline
for over a decade before their research or leadership translates into anything resembling a fast
immigration path.
In nearly every case, the founder ends up taking a longer road than necessary, largely because
the visa built for exactly their profile either didn’t exist in its current form or wasn’t something
they knew to pursue.
Why This Matters Now
F-1 visa issuance dropped 36% in 2025, and the H-1B lottery keeps getting harder to win. The
traditional pipeline that founders like Nadella and Su relied on is narrowing. The O-1A does not
depend on that pipeline. It depends on what you have already built, which is exactly why more
founders are turning to it as a first step rather than a fallback.
If you are a founder, researcher, or high-skill professional with results you can point to, the
question worth asking is not whether your story matches a famous one. It’s whether the
evidence you already have, funding, awards, press, leadership roles, quietly adds up to an O-1A
case you haven’t built yet.
