[naveensundar]

Why did you leave out what was stated just before and after what you have quoted from the study? You seem to be misrepresenting what they intended to show with those numbers. The point of that number was not to show a decline, but rather to show stagnation.

"The study found that, for the first time in decades, the growth rate of immigrant-founded companies has stagnated, if not declined. In comparison with previous decades of increasing immigrant-led entrepreneurism, the last seven years has witnessed a flattening out of this trend. The proportion of immigrant-founded companies nationwide has dropped from 25.3 percent to 24.3 percent since 2005. While the margins of error of these numbers overlap, they nonetheless indicate that immigrant-founded companies’ dynamic period of expansion has come to an end.

We also performed a special analysis of Silicon Valley, which is widely known as the international hub for technological development and innovation. The findings indicate that 43.9 percent of Silicon Valley startups founded in the last seven years had at least one key founder who was an immigrant. This represents a notable drop in immigrant-founded companies since 2005, when 52.4 percent of Silicon Valley startups were immigrant-founded."

Also, some people are starting to notice that innovation is slowly stopping: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/04/opinion-fox-net-innovat...

I will also let the Economist argue for me:

http://www.economist.com/node/21564589