‘It was phenomenal that 15 IITians helped build Microsoft,’ Bill Gates’ old video goes viral amid H-1B visa fee hike

Amidst US President Donald Trump’s imposition of the H-1B visa fee hike, an old clip of Microsoft founder Bill Gates praising his Indian employees is gaining attention.

Bill Gates' 2024 video praising his Indian employees goes viral 

In the video clip, Gates lauds the fifteen IITians in the early years of Microsoft who helped the company reach new heights.

The tech boss’s words and encouragement to Indian techies working in the US were widely appreciated on the Indian internet. Gates even presented an alternative approach to US President Donald Trump’s much-criticised ways after he announced a massive hike in H-1B visa fees to $100,000 (approximately, Rs 88,61,500).

President Trump’s move originated from his nationalistic ideals and the “MAGA" (Make America Great Again) vision to provide American citizens with more job opportunities by discouraging U.S.-based companies from hiring foreign nationals, regardless of their capabilities.

The old video of Bill Gates acknowledging the efforts of his Indian employees is from the speech he delivered at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi in February 2024.

During his speech, the Microsoft founder recalled the early days of the tech giant, when the company was looking to boost its staff and eyeing world-class engineering talent.

A senior colleague had an unconventional idea of hiring 15 talented IIT graduates from India, who would put their heart and soul into work if provided an opportunity.

“In a sense, my first connection with India came because of the IITs," Gates says in the clip. “One of the great people who worked for me said that he would go over to India and hire about 15 people who had been students at IIT and that would strengthen Microsoft’s engineering capabilities."

“At the time, we had only a few hundred people, but even so, it was so hard to find amazing engineers. I thought that was a good idea. At the time, the Indian press said it was a terrible thing because all these great people (engineers) were leaving their country. The US press said it was a terrible thing (with) all these people coming to another country. But I think now, over 25 years later, we can say that was a phenomenal thing."

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