Optimism
It’s a difficult time to be optimistic. There is a lot of suffering, fear, and despair that is prevalent in the world due to the common enemy that is an invisible virus. For the talking heads, twitter pundits, and even the serious strategists, it’s much easier to riff on scary infection scenarios and gloomy economic forecasts. Despite being an eternal optimist, even I’m in agreement that it’s prudent to be preparing for a prolonged crisis. But for all of these reasons, I have extreme appreciation for those trying to bring hope and optimism to the world. John Krasinski’s Some Good News (SGN) episodes bring tears to my eyes each time. Zion Williamson, age 19, was one of the first athletes to step up to cover the wages of hundreds of furloughed employees. Bill Gates committed Billions of dollars to set up vaccine manufacturing facilities before knowing which vaccine will work and also contributing an additional $150M to the World Health Organization after Trump pulled funding. As tough as it may be to find reasons to be optimistic, there are glimmers of hope.
The startup world is driven by optimism as entrepreneurs face uphill battles from the get go. Or per Reid Hoffman, “An entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.”
In a dark and scary time, the startup ecosystem is one where optimism can indeed be found. Tech entrepreneurs are building companies with long term visions, whose products and services will come to fruition long after COVID-19 has been contained and our lives are back to normal — whatever that normal may look like. In a crippled economy, startups building for the future will inevitably be heavily impacted in the near term. But the optimism comes from the opportunities to leverage technology to build for the future.
This is an important time to be kind and to be selfless as we get through this crisis. After that, we will need widespread optimism more than ever as we band together to rebuild.
