>On the other hand, I think it is reasonable to say that this amount of money is the value of an entire small economy, or of the entire stock market of a somewhat bigger one.

Yes. I think it's plausible to believe that it's a ridiculous valuation. That whatever the company has can be replicated for less money.

That's probably true for many companies, but seeing as Palo Alto Networks probably has some kind of software arm, it seems reasonable to expect that they'd actually have the capacity to get what they want for less.