Sergey Brin’s family fled antisemitism in Russia when he was six years old. He arrived in Maryland speaking no English. His mother was a NASA scientist, his father a math professor. He earned a scholarship to Stanford, and in 1998, in a garage in Menlo Park, he and Larry Page launched Google.
Alphabet is worth nearly $4.7 trillion today. Brin got there on a student visa, then stayed on OPT after it expired. That path barely exists in its original form anymore. F-1 visa issuance fell 36% in 2025, and the H-1B lottery has never been more competitive.
The O-1A, the visa for people who have already proven they are extraordinary in their field, still works at scale for startup founders. Its approval rate sits at 92.7%, far above what most founders expect from an immigration process.
Why the O-1A Fits Startup Founders Specifically
Founders occupy an unusual position in immigration law. They are not employees looking for a company to sponsor them, and they often don’t fit neatly into H-1B specialty occupation categories, especially in the early stages of a company. The O-1A solves this in two ways:
- Self-petition through your own company. A founder’s business can act as the petitioning employer, as long as there is a genuine employer-employee relationship, often demonstrated through a board, investors, or an operating agreement.
- No cap, no lottery. Unlike the H-1B, there is no annual limit on O-1A approvals and no random selection process. Petitions are adjudicated on the strength of the evidence, not on timing or luck.
For a founder in Brin’s position today, building a search company, an AI product, or any category-defining startup, this means the visa decision is no longer about whether your number gets drawn. It is about whether you can document that you already stand out in your field.
What Startup Founders Should Be Documenting Early
The founders most often surprised by their own eligibility are the ones who wait until they need the visa to start gathering proof. By that point, early funding announcements have been buried by newer news, and early press has scrolled off the internet. The categories worth tracking from day one include:
- Funding rounds and the terms attached to them
- Press coverage, podcast appearances, and speaking engagements
- Any advisory, board, or leadership roles at other companies or organizations
- Awards, accelerator selections, or fellowships tied to your work
Brin’s path involved a Stanford scholarship and a research project that became Google. A modern equivalent might be a seed round, a technical publication, or a product launch covered by trade press. The form is different. The underlying evidence-building process is the same.
The Bigger Shift
The traditional route Brin took, student visa into OPT into a company that eventually outgrew any immigration concern, is a survivorship story. For every Sergey Brin who made it work, there are founders whose OPT clock ran out before their company found its footing. The O-1A removes that dependency on timing by giving startup founders a path that runs on evidence, not on a calendar or a lottery number.
