I was being a bit glib. The sausage factory is there for a reason. That reason often sucks, but it's not random.

Look at it from a policy maker's standpoint: strip out the happy talk about money and jobs. What this boils down to is a group of rich people on the left coast asking for a grant of power, the power to give visas, with no oversight. The politicians doesn't know these geeks from anyone, and here they are asking for a slice of government power.

So they propose a committee to make sure this doesn't become a loophole for rich fugitives and tax-evasion. Certain types of people smell a cushy job and the role expands, the idea gets paraphrased to someone at WSJ and we end up with that sentence.

Well, there is potential for abuse: a startup founder gets an "investment" of $500k from an accredited angel and a permanent resident visa. A little while later, the startup takes an exit (e.g. dissolves the company and returns the assets to the investor), netting the founder a greencard in the process.

If you've got somebody willing to wire you $500k, you can basically do that already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa

Well, that requires that you leave the country immediately after the business has been concluded; this proposal says that "... the founder would be granted a permanent resident visa", which presumably wouldn't expire.