CEOs, Get Ready For A New World. Again.

A little over a year ago, at the start of this mess, things were scary. We had no idea what to expect from Covid-19 (back when we were still calling it “the novel coronavirus”) or what it would do to the world. Shortages had already begun; toilet paper, isopropyl alcohol, and disinfectant were hard to come by for months. Americans were being advised to stockpile nonperishable food in case interstate commerce dried up the way international trade already had. And across the United States, the chattering class were doing our best to project a sunny outlook, forestall panic, and help people prepare to venture into this strange new world that had been foisted upon us. Business writers (including this writer) did our best to predict the future, advising CEOs to start planning for an unimaginable pivot away from how things had always been done. The goal was simple: reminding a frightened economy that things were still, to some degree, under our control. But at the back of our minds, we all had the same lingering question: what would survive, and what would be left of it?