Besides the fact that 6.1B is not the value to the US Economy: those engineers and developers would have probably produced value anyway. So, to be specific, we

Besides the fact that 6.1B is not the value to the US Economy: those engineers and developers would have probably produced value anyway. So, to be specific, we should know the value without YC and with YC and the difference would then be "the value of YC to the US Economy"; I think we should ask ourselves: 1. How does the YC-factor scale to make a real impact to any economy. Don't ask me data, but 6.1 billion in few years have a 1*10^-n impact to the GDP of most western economies, where probably n>10. 2. If it's fair to call copycats everybody that tries to replicate the concept, any concept. Innovation involves lots of copying, I thought we agreed on that. 3. If the YC-factor can make a real impact on industries that are likely to be fundamental for our future welfare: food, pharma, hospitals, insurance (pensions). And I am interested in point 3 especially. Because 6.1B is nice, but we need to face the reality here. We live in an aging world were people want to retire at 60 with the same shape they had at 18. Implications of this are enormous for our future.