A Nepal-born software engineer who left a high-paying job at Google after repeated visa setbacks has received his US green card.Prateek Karki, a San Francisco-based founder, shared the news in a post that went viral on X, saying that he and his wife have gained permanent residency in the US after a long and difficult journey with repeated failures in the H-1B visa lottery.“We got our green cards today! Here’s the full story, no BS, and special thanks to my parents,” Karki wrote.Karki said that his personal connection to the United States goes back to his father, who previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. His father later returned to Nepal due to family circumstances, choosing to raise his children there rather than continue his career in the United States.According to Karki, this decision affected his upbringing, as the family lived in humble circumstances in Nepal after his father moved away from his life in America.“Going back to Nepal was the only way,” he said. “He moved away from everything he had built for us in America. We moved to my grandparents’ house in a small room in the attic.”Years later, Karki moved to the US and built a career in technology, eventually joining Google in a paid engineering role.
He said his compensation amounts to approximately $300,000 a year.However, his ability to remain long-term in the United States depends on the H-1B visa lottery, a system that selects applicants for work permits at random. Karki said that he was unsuccessful four times while working at Google.“Two years ago, I was rejected from Google’s H1B lottery for the fourth time,” he wrote.He added: “I sat with the email for a long time before I told anyone.”He said the repeated rejections left him facing the prospect of leaving the United States, and possibly separating from his wife and the life they had built in San Francisco.“I was thinking about packing everything up. Try Canada, or go back to Nepal and live thousands of miles away from the person I love,” he wrote.Karki later decided to leave Google at the age of 27, giving up “roughly $300,000 in annual comp.” He began exploring startup ideas in San Francisco, where he co-founded Anthromind with fellow founder Mannat.
The company is focused on building what Karki described as “the ultimate human data layer for frontier labs and enterprise AI teams.”During this period, he also applied for the O-1 visa, which is given to individuals with exceptional abilities. He said he prepared the application himself using evidence from his career, including hackathon judging and published writing, and the petition was approved.“The case is approved,” he wrote.Then, Karki and his wife finally received their green cards, ending years of uncertainty about immigration.“Today my wife and I have our green cards,” he wrote.He added: “Two immigrants, one company, one conversation at the kitchen table changed everything.”He dedicated the result to his father, saying: “Papa, this is yours, thanks to all your sacrifices and lessons.”
