Tech Pique (29 August)
Children of Migrants
A great article in the AFR about Alumina CEO Mike Ferraro and his journey as the son of immigrant parents from southern Italy through to his role today.
One part in particular resonated given the characteristics I’ve observed from immigrant founders at the early stage: “Ferraro admits as the son of a migrant “you’re much more driven”. He says his curiosity and multitude of roles gave him a breadth of experience. Importantly, he was never afraid to make the tough calls.
“I didn’t shy away from the difficult stuff. I find a lot of people, even in leadership roles, find it hard to do the difficult stuff,” he says.”
It is this determination, curiosity and resilience I’ve observed from immigrant early stage founders that enables them to perform when it comes to starting and scaling businesses - they are dogged in their perseverance to overcome any adversity.
Research in the US shows that children of immigrants have founded 51 unicorns (companies valued at over $1bn) including household names such as Reddit, BetterUp, Airtable and Magic Leap. The study notes that 51 is likely to be an underestimate because data on parents’ immigration status could not verified.
In Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success by economists Ran Abramitzky (Stanford University) and Leah Boustan (Princeton University), they find that “children of immigrants from nearly every country in the world are more upwardly mobile than the children of US-born residents who were raised in families with a similar income level.”
Why? I suspect work-ethic, determination, resilience and perseverance.