Reverse brain drain. We've been brain-draining the rest of the world for decades, but now we've stopped. We're actively driving away the talents we'd previously attracted and our home-grown workers are too few due to falling birth rates. Those foreign graduate students that do the research at our world-class universities? The entrepreneurs looking to attract funding and find collaborators? The desperate and hopeful people fleeing war, persecution, poverty? We are less and less attractive to them every day as our xenophobia and hostility grow and our economic advantages are squandered.

The only reason we're not being brain-drained ourselves is that most Americans don't really speak languages other than English, and those that do speak Spanish. That, and few other countries have the vision or desire to be a United States that can encompass and contain all races, cultures, and creeds. Most do not make it easy to immigrate or integrate.

The fact of the matter is, there is nowhere else for them to go. You would never see the same gains building a startup in Europe that you would in the US. Similar to India and China. Africa is a nonstarter. So, where are you going to go?

Almost every YC startup has underperformed once public. China has BYD to Tesla. What startups and innovation would you hold as an example that can’t be done elsewhere? Or is innovation vs some sort of grift or pyramid scheme (crypto)?

I’ve helped people leave for Canada, Europe, and Australia. There will always be developed countries for people to flee to for safe lives. But this idea that the US has robust macroeconomic competition from the world in the near term does not hold up. It’s messaging and a narrative to get favorable labor immigration treatment for self serving reasons, no more.