A perspective on our reactions to COVID-19 from Silicon Valley, Paris and Kyiv
The world is really flat…or is it?
I have been fortunate, in my professional life in Tech and Digital, to travel the world and to visit and work in many continents, with very different clients. I had clients everywhere in Europe, in the US, in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, South Korea). And recently, I moved to Ukraine.
With no shortage of tech talents, ideas, and a strong ecosystem like UNIT.City, Ukraine is definitely one of the places in the world that could pretend to play a significant role in global innovation. But in many ways, for historical reasons mostly, it’s also the youngest country I have worked with. It’s been independent since 1991 and it went through an important revolution in 2014 and it’s a country that is at war…even if it’s really not visible from Kiev. So Ukraine should be very different from all the other countries I mentioned previously. And to be honest, working in China never seemed the same as working in France or Japan or anywhere in the US! And yes, Kiev is very different.
But that was true until September…that was before the crisis. Before the world changed. But how is the world changing and especially how is it changing for the Tech world in Ukraine ?
We probably all remember the book published in 2005 by Thomas Friedamn : The World is Flat — A Brief History of the 21st Century. This Coronavirus crisis reminds us that definitely, our world is now completely flat… and very small. We all use the same technologies, wherever we are, we work the same way…and we are affected, almost at the same time, by the same virus, and in mostly the same proportions. Frontiers have in fact mostly disappeared or at least proved inefficient.
Probably never before was the Butterfly effect proven so right and visible. A very small change — in our case, one animal transmitting one virus to one human in one market in Wuhan, China. This is the equivalent of one butterfly moving his wing — causing in just a few months a global pandemic and an economic crisis. The crisis is shared by both supply and demand (and the equivalent of absolute global chaos as a result). This is a typical example of the chaos theory that is unfolding right in front of us.
There is no real difference in the way we are all affected. At least 4 billion people are confined and all our economies are stalled. For most of what we called the knowledge workers (people working in an office mostly, and definitely all of us in IT), the effects around the globe are all about the same.
What really is striking, speaking with my friends in Silicon Valley, or my friends in Paris or in Shanghai, is the similarities of the situation. We have all been sent back home ! And we are facing exactly the same challenges : what are we going to do with the kids, what about the food, what are we going to do all day at home…and what to watch on Netflix ? The European Union even had to ask Netflix to reduce the quality of their movies to preserve the bandwidth. Netflix alone in Europe is more than 25% of internet traffic…Imagine if we are all doubling our usage in the world ?
If I look at the way we work I am absolutely shocked that we are all using the same tools..80 to 90% of them from Silicon Valley by the way (except for Skype of course! And with the exception of China). All our meetings are via Zoom, we are communicating with our teams on Slack, using Asana or Gira for project management…The only difference stays our language, and not even always as English has become largely universal in our geek world.
I see many risks on the way we will exit this crisis and an opportunity. Because the world is flat, small and that we are all in this together.
The main risk, that is unfortunately highly likely to happen, is to rebuild stronger frontiers and try to over protect ourselves from each other. I won’t elaborate at all on that as the rise of nationalism and populism around the globe on one hand, and the multiple weakness of globalisation at a large scale on the other hand, are largely commented on.
The second option, and for me the only one, is to do what Marc Andreessen is advocating for. We need to build ! And for that, I see a huge potential for Ukraine. I will elaborate on it soon, but I view this for Ukraine as the clear and smart exit strategy of this crisis. Especially for the tech industry of the country. But isn’t it the case for many countries ?
And at the end, we all feel the same : we are social animals. For most of us, wherever we are, what we love the most is to be together. The only thing we really want is something no tools will ever give us : human interactions. Is this world over ? If it is, it’s for all of us because yes, the world is flat.
