Post COVID-19 predictions
2 min readMar 26, 2020
- Most companies will go back to onsite work. Before the virus, remote work adoption was growing. After the post-vaccine remote work contraction, remote will start growing again at a moderated rate, but faster than before. This driven by 3 new forces: First, employees will claim remote work as a right (or at last coax their employers to allow such a thing). Second, more companies will realize that not all roles need to be strictly performed onsite. Third, more software that facilitates collaboration and rapport will come out to market. Companies not implementing remote work to at least some degree will not be staggering yet, but they will be seen as clunky. To some companies, remote work will be enticing enough to change their old way.
- Lots of innovation in medicine will have taken place, beyond the invention of a commercially viable vaccine. Telemedicine will be HIPAA compliant via Zoom calls. Medicine delivery will be disrupted with innovations in supply chain management and drone-based delivery. Some onerous medicine acquisition practices will be a thing of the past.
- Questioning the value of universities will finally cross the chasm. Innovators and early adopters have already done it, the early majority will come next. After having spent 3 semesters studying online, people will start to question whether they do need to pay tuition that costs tens of thousands of dollars, or if they can just keep learning online effectively. Big names won’t go out of the market though, they offer a lof credentialing and people will just not forget that so easily. It’s a truism to say that people will still prefer Ivy League graduates above the rest.
- Online dating will be more socially accepted than the pre-pandemic era. People won’t be adamant about the idea of at least trying anymore.
- We will be more obsessed with hygiene throughout different dimensions. A considerably larger chunk of the population will use anti-bacterial gel every day. People will build a knack for this.
- There will be another case like Lehman Brothers, a publicly-traded company going out of business. In general, low-margin businesses that require a lot of people to agglomerate will have gone out of business by the time a vaccine is commercially distributed worldwide. There’s a penchant for this in times of crisis.
- Category-defining companies will be created. Companies that are only created once or twice per generation. The 08–09 recession created the gig economy and legendary companies such as Uber and Airbnb. We will have venture success cases such as those thanks to a new category of startups.
- The country that creates the vaccine will have an ideological victory. Just like the US had an ideological victory vs the USSR during The Space Race.
