(Photo: Xbox live addicts)

Who says playing video games is nothing but a timesuck? The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reports that Jose Muñoz, an undocumented immigrant who's been living in the U.S. since age 1, used his extensive Xbox history to stay in the country. Take that, Mom!

Mr. Muñoz graduated from high school in 2005, but because his family visa had long since expired, he couldn't safely attend college or apply for a job without fear of being deported. Instead, he began to help around the house, and much like every other college-aged kid, spent a lot of time playing games on Xbox Live.

When President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Mr. Muñoz finally had a chance to remain in the country while working or attending school. The problem was that because Mr. Muñoz had lived under the radar since his graduation in 2005, he didn't have documents like paystubs or college transcripts to prove that he had lived in the U.S. consistently since then.

Luckily his attorney came up with a genius idea: using his Xbox Live account history to prove Mr. Muñoz's residency. And the idea worked--Mr. Muñoz can stay in the country for another two years, after which he can apply for deferment again. Plus, he'll never have to justify staying up late playing Bioshock ever again.

As for immigration reform: Zuck's on the case, don't you worry.

Image via Wired.

Mayor Bloomberg doesn't do a tech ribbon cutting with reminding us that immigration is critical to our tech sectors future. And prominent venture capitalist Fred Wilson has written time and again about the importance of foreign workers in tech and the Startup Visa Act.

But over on the West Coast, they are doing some balls-out crazy stuff to make this happen. Blueseed, for example, a company backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, is constructing a floating city that will drop anchor 12 miles off the California coast. Transient techies will work on the boat by day, then head back to San Francisco to live by night, meaning they can avoid laws preventing immigrants from working at U.S. companies. 

Ok, couple things startups are going to need to survive:

Caffeine, check.

Cute puppy, check.

Internet... hmmm.

"We’re testing out a few ideas," Blueseed CEO Max Marty told Wired. "We’ll need a stable and low-latency bandwidth connection to the Internet. Cruise ships have not done this well, relying on satellite which is slow, and the price is significantly higher than it is on land. A laser could be good, but is susceptible to fog, which is bad in the Bay Area. We’re considering running an undersea cable from ship to shore, but it may be be cost prohibitive."

A laser beam of internet access cutting through the Frisco fog would certainly make a great symbol. Like a bat signal for innovation.

Like most incubators, Blueseed will ask for equity in exchange for giving startups a share of this oceanic co-working space. They are still debating the merits of a barge versus a cruise ship, but luckily for the company, we're in a down market for cruise ships, with many tourist fleets docking some of their big boats, so they may be able to secure the vessel on the cheap. "No matter what we go with, we want to be the Googleplex of the sea," Blueseed president Dario Mutabdzija told Wired. Well, at least they've got the branding down.

Mayor Bloomberg at NY Tech Meetup

Master of ceremonies Nate Westheimer cut the demos short last night to introduce NY Tech Meetup to a surprise guest, a  former Wall Street worker who had seen the light and invested his life savings into a tech startup instead.

"Hello innovators, entrepreneurs, or as I call you, my peeps," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who likes to break the ice with a little slang for the youths. "Thirty years ago I would have been sitting out there with you. I was unemployed, I had a lot of passion, but no business."

Mayor Bloomberg paused to savor how his move to tech had resulted in a bit of sweet revenge. "I was fired from Wall Street by a seven man committee. Six of them are now using Bloomberg. The ring leader died, but I believe an employee now owns his house."

Peek Behind The Curtain of VC Funding With Our First Original Web - The Pitch

Okay, enough with the basking in power; back to the scrappy startup stories. "It took us three years from starting Bloomberg to signing our first real customer. The day it happened I sat down and wrote on the back of an envelope. I multiplied our monthly fee by 12, times 20 for selling 20 terminals, minus our expenses, and there it was, we we breaking even."

A murmur of happy recognition swept through the crowd. "The first year is easy, you know it's right in your heart," continued Mr. Bloomberg. "The last year is easy, you can see the light at end of tunnel. But that middle year, when you keep putting your own money in to cover payroll, can really make you doubt yourself."

Time for a quick history lesson, kids! "There was no PC when we started building our terminal in a barn. When the PC came along I knew we couldn't compete, so we switched to that system."

"I know you think there was no day before the internet, but when we started we would rent a 9,600 baud telephone line, that was very fast. Then high speed internet came along and I said, 'We have to switch to this.'"

The larger point, said Mayor Bloomberg, is not to get caught up in the details of your business. "This is what Steve Jobs meant when he said 'You want to listen to your customers, but not too much.' It's not the the hardware, not the tech, it's what do you do for your customers."

We could listen to Bloombito talk all night, but there are demos to be done, so let's cut to the chase. "I am not here to pitch you the Bloomberg terminal, although if you have $20,000 a month lying around, I will take it. I want to pitch you New York City, which is near and dear to my heart. Tech will define the 21st century and this crowd has the power to make New York our nation's tech capital."

To help with this, the mayor announced two big new initiatives. The first is a Mayor's Council on Tech, a ten person panel that will help guide the city in identifying the best new opportunities to grow local innovation. It's a strong list:

John Borthwick, betaworks, Founder & CEO
Marc Cenedella, TheLadders, Founder & CEO
Perry Chen, Kickstarter, Founder & CEO
Susan Crawford, Cardozo School of Law, Professor, former Special Assistant to President Obama for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy
Ntiedo Etuk, DimensionU, Co-Founder & CEO
Jonah Goodhart, Moat, Founder & co-CEO
Mitch Jacobs, On Deck Capital, Founder & CEO
Susan Lyne, Gilt Groupe, Chairman
Hilary Mason, bit.ly, Chief Scientist
Barry Silbert, SecondMarket, Founder & CEO
David Tisch, TechStars NYC, Managing Director

The second half of the Mayor's new agenda was immigration. "When you go outside two out of five people in New York City are born outside the U.S. But the real key is not the number, it's living as a mixture, not a mosaic. Because people here work together, melding our food, language and philosophy."

Companies like Google and Yahoo were founded by immigrants, noted the mayor. "I have been down to Washington to try and convince them that shutting our doors is committing national suicide." The city is now partnering with the law firm Fragomen to give local companies education and advice about international hiring. "The goal is to make sure New York startups have access to the best talent."

Mr. Nicol got an employer-sponsored visa after graduating that allowed him to stay and work in New York. But when he caught that infectious case of start-up fever going around town, and wanted to quit his job and start his own company, immigration policy got in the way. No corporate law job, no visa.

Instead, Mr. Nichol ended up taking advantage of a government-sponsored program in Chile called Start-Up Chile, that bestows would-be founders with both entrepreneurs visa and $40,000 to start their companies. NPR doesn't name or describe Mr. Nicol's start-up, but according to a Start-Up Chile Meetup page, it looks like he's the founder of EveryRack. The description of the company via Google search results says, "We select the best sales, discounts and closeouts at New York retail stores and share them with you," although EveryRack's website points to a larger market, saying, "We find the best sales in local retail stores and share them with you in our free weekly newsletter."

Mr. Nicol told NPR:

"I'm basically leaving New York to come to Santiago to start a business that targets New York consumers — just because it's so much easier to do it from here, and there is so much more support from the government here."

Your move, D.C. Mayor Bloomberg can't do this on his own . . .

Save your applause til the end, please.

Mayor Bloomberg's strongly-worded call for immediate immigration reform yesterday has been drawing praise from some of the biggest names from Silicon Alley out to the Valley. Mr. Bloomberg's speech tying immigration to innovation clearly struck a chord with those in the tech sector who have been struggling to find talent to keep pace with their growth—an issue causing furrowed brows among New York City's start-up founders.

"It’s what I call national suicide – and that’s not hyperbole," said Bloomberg. "Every day that we fail to fix our broken immigration laws is a day that we inflict a wound on our economy. Today, we may have turned away the next Albert Einstein or Sergey Brin. Tomorrow, we may turn away the next Levi Strauss or Jerry Yang."

As Fred Wilson put it, the Mayor's plan calls for a green card stapled to every diploma for an advanced degree.

"We are investing millions of dollars to educate these students at our leading universities, and then giving the economic dividends back to our competitors--for free. The two parties should be able to agree on a policy that allows any university graduate with an advanced degree in an essential field to obtain a green card--and a chance to help us grow our economy. We must allow these students to stay here and be part of our future or we will watch our future disappear with them."

TechCrunch's Mike Arrington is pumped that the Mayor's plan will include a new visa for entrepreneurs with investors ready to invest capital in their job-creating idea. He drafted a post, Hell Yes, Mayor Bloomberg. I'm With You, that shot to the top of Hacker News and Techmeme. Major investors like Brad Feld and John Doerr took up the rallying cry on Twitter.

For years, former entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa has promoted the notion of a "Start-up Visa," a federal approach to some of these same concerns. Back in March, he criticized the Kerry-Lugar proposal on the subject because of the amount of money it demanded entrepreneurs raise before being granted a visa. His criticism helped lower that threshold to a minimum of $100,000. (After two years, the start-up needs to have created five American jobs, raised more than $500,000, or generate more than $500,000 in annual revenue.) That bill is being lobbied for by some of the same names, like Mr. Wilson and Mr. Feld. It's great to see the Mayor jumping in to take up the banner.