Viral macro- and microeconomics

The COVID-19 crisis is already dramatically reshaping our economy, at a macro and micro level.

From a macroeconomic standpoint, the next few months will be a culling of the herd. Businesses in some key industries that have invested in digital transformation will come out of this crisis stronger, both from having seen their core revenue streams grow and having seen some of their competitors dry up. We’ll also see some of the biggest players get bigger: Big Tech will consolidate its foothold on American life; Amazon will accelerate its takeover of small businesses around the country.

I fully expect us to start seeing our vibrant independent business districts boarded up like ghost towns.

At a microeconomic level, as the gig economy dries up—and as people realize how perilous gig work was in the first place—we’re going to see a massive shift in focus areas. Many friends have already been laid off, or seen their partners laid off, or seen their pipelines and their business prospectives dry up practically overnight. We used to refer to “upskilling” in the context of career transition for obsolete workers. Now it will be a requirement for millions finding a new home in an economy that changed overnight. We’re about to see a huge shift in skillsets as people shift their workstreams online, and the longer this drags on, the more dramatic that shift will become.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how I feel about these shifts, considering how much of my career has been focused on digital transformation. The trends that will be accelerated by this virus are the ones I’ve been predicting and talking about for the last decade. But I’ve been part of a small but growing cohort of leaders calling for Big Tech to be held more accountable, and for tech itself to be more ethical in its approach to influencing our society. I don’t feel great about suddenly shifting large parts of our economy to give one sector so much more power.

But I’ve always believed we’ll get the kind of disruption we’re collectively willing to allow, willing to fight for. If our workforce is having to transition to such reliance on technology, if we’re going to have to dramatically upskill millions of people to be more digitally savvy at once, that could potentially add fuel to the ethical tech movement—if we upskill those workers in critical thinking as well.

We’re collectively operating out of fear right now, but that won’t last forever. Eventually we’ll have to turn around and face the new world.