When Panic Becomes Opportunity: Reflections on the $100K H‑1B Fee and What I’d Seen Coming

I woke up to the same images millions saw: frantic last‑minute bookings, advisories from tech employers, and headlines suggesting a tectonic shift for global tech mobility. MakeMyTrip reported an unusual spike in same‑day and next‑day India‑to‑US bookings after the Trump administration’s proclamation around a $100,000 H‑1B application fee — a price tag aimed, they said, at restricting H‑1B access to only “extraordinarily skilled” workers "Increase in last-minute bookings" (Times of India).

Within hours the White House moved to clarify that the fee would be a one‑time levy on new petitions in the next lottery cycle and would not apply to renewals or current visa holders — but the panic had already rippled through families, workplaces, and markets "White House says $100K H-1B visa fee won’t apply to existing holders" (Boston Globe).

These are the practical things I thought of first — and then the deeper pattern that has been playing out for years.

The immediate human and business effects

• Travel and family disruption: People weigh the risk of being stranded against the cost and chaos of last‑minute travel. That anxiety shows up not just in social media but in measurable spikes in bookings and cancellations "Increase in last-minute bookings" (Times of India).
• Corporate scramble: Tech firms advised employees differently depending on where they were located — some said “stay put,” others urged certain employees to return. Market reactions to the uncertainty were swift.
• Policy ambiguity matters. Even a short window of confusion can trigger large, real movements of people and capital — as we saw in airline demand and IT stock volatility.

Why this feels familiar — and why I’m not surprised

This is not the first time the industry faced a stress test tied to immigration policy. Years ago I wrote about how Indian IT would be compelled to re‑engineer its business model: fewer people‑led, more platform and IP‑led; accelerate automation; and re‑embrace higher‑value work rather than purely labour arbitrage (see my reflections in Can Indian IT re‑invent itself? and Will holograms beat H‑1B visa ban?).

More recently I argued that India can be the world’s "brain factory" — that we must convert our talent and cost arbitrage into sustained export of IP, products, and R&D services (see India: the BRAIN FACTORY of the WORLD and Brain Inc 2.0).

To be candid: the core idea I’ve been conveying for years is this — take a moment to notice that I had brought up this thought long before today’s headlines. I had predicted this outcome or challenge, and I proposed solutions at the time. Seeing how events have unfolded gives me a quiet sense of validation and a renewed urgency to revisit and accelerate those earlier ideas.

Three structural truths the H‑1B shock exposes

1. Talent mobility policies can change quickly, and when they do the human consequences are immediate. Policy uncertainty is operational risk for companies and families alike.
2. The old model — shipping large numbers of engineers to client sites overseas — is increasingly brittle. Automation, cloud platforms, and AI change delivery models; geography matters less for software, more for IP and product ownership.
3. India’s strength is its people and scale. But scale alone is not destiny; we must move from being a low‑cost delivery centre to an originator of products, platforms, and high‑value services.

Concrete actions I believe should happen now

These are not abstract recommendations — they are the practical pivots I wrote about years ago and have repeated since.

• Double down on product and IP creation in India. Incentivize R&D, patenting, and startups that keep ownership in‑country. Support GCCs and R&D centres to build and commercialize IP rather than only deliver services (GCC hiring and opportunity).
• Massive reskilling focused on AI, cloud, data engineering, ML ops, and domain expertise. The fewer commoditised tasks remain, the more valuable each engineer becomes.
• Promote remote‑first, outcome‑oriented contracting. If onsite visas become harder or costlier, design work packages that deliver by outcomes, not by headcount hours.
• Create national initiatives to market "India as Brain Factory" — not only to sell low‑cost labour but to sell world‑class R&D, product engineering, and managed AI services.
• Build platforms that match displaced talent to new jobs fast — online jobs fairs, virtual interviewing, and global marketplace solutions that I suggested opportunistically years ago (see my note on OnlineJobsFair.com).

A note to my fellow entrepreneurs and policymakers

I’ve written about these inflection points before — the ideas weren’t born overnight. Whether I was talking about the need for Indian IT to reinvent itself in 2017 (Can Indian IT re‑invent itself?), or urging that India become an IP exporter and Brain Factory (Brain Inc 2.0), the throughline has been the same: convert our talent, scale, and cost advantage into durable value.

That earlier work matters today because it shows two things: I anticipated the problem, and I sketched practical responses years ago. The present panic should not only be met with empathy for affected families but with clarity of purpose — to accelerate the structural changes that create more resilient careers and sovereign value.

We cannot control every shift in global politics or policy. But we can control what we build, the skills we cultivate, and the ownership we keep. If policy tightens one lane, let’s open ten others where India leads not by cost alone, but by original thinking and durable intellectual property.

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Regards,
Hemen Parekh