EconAir

  Immigrants and their children account for a disproportionate number of entrepreneurs and CEOs of technology companies. Half of the graduate students in engineering, math and science in US universities are foreigners. In the past, a high percent stayed in the United States after graduation. Immigrants are founders or current CEOs of most of America’s leading tech companies. (Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, AMD, Intel)   The economic impact and importance of companies founded by immigrants or their children. More than 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 2025 (231 out of 500) were founded by immigrants or their children, including: 109 companies founded by immigrants. 122 companies founded by children of immigrants. Among the 14 companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 list for the first time this year, 10 were founded by immigrants or their children. In fiscal year 2024, these 231 Fortune 500 companies generated $8.6 trillion in revenue—an amount that, if compared with ...

  Earliest known photograph of slaves and cotton, around 1850 Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine, December 6, 2019 A New Nation, America from 1789 to 1860 If you study American history from 1789 to 1860 (just before the start of the Civil War), the political history is very complicated. But remember what caused most of these political conflicts and uneasy compromises - the dynamic changes in the underlying economy. Two in particular – the spectacular increase in slave-produced cotton and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America. They were related.   What is the Industrial Revolution? At its heart it is power-driven metal machinery producing huge quantities of goods. At first, the power was supplied by steam engines and water wheels. Later, in the 20 th  century, electricity. All of this used huge amounts of fossil fuels – first coal, later oil and natural gas were added. America had huge quantities of all three.   A trend that continued from colonial time...