Time was when many vehicles offered a manual option, either because customers wanted performance, or because they wanted better fuel-economy — or because they just wanted a cheap option.

While one can still find manual transmissions on vehicles in Europe and South America, automatics are the rule in the US.

Even some performance cars have dropped the manual options, most notably Ferrari. Most people no longer learn to drive on a stick-shift, and for the most part, automatics yield good fuel economy and can be had on inexpensive cars.

So the stick-shift is dying out. But one can still find it on a decent number of cars. 

Here's a rundown of some of my favorites, ranked from most satisfying to least:

Some people have already received their coronavirus stimulus checks from the federal government, according to mobile banking startup Current.

The company told The Wall Street Journal that roughly 10,000 accounts received stimulus payments from the Internal Revenue Service starting Friday afternoon. The one-time payments are part of the government's stimulus package meant to help Americans recover from the financial shock of coronavirus shutdowns.

Most people received $1,200 payments, the minimum amount, according to Current. Others, who qualified for more money because they have children or for other reasons, received payments of up to $4,700.

The IRS announced on Friday that people who already have direct deposit information on file from filing their taxes will receive payments in the coming week. Up to 70 million Americans will be paid by April 15, a Treasury spokesperson told The Washington Post.

For everyone else, paper checks will arrive by mail any time between now and early September.

New filers are urged to use a new IRS tool to submit their bank details in order to get their one-time payments as soon as possible.

Flexible-office provider Knotel struggled to hit financial targets well before the coronavirus hit, its internal financial reporting viewed by Business Insider shows.

Financial data reviewed by Business Insider shows the WeWork competitor had substantially missed sales targets as recently as the fourth quarter of 2019 and had accrued hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant space months before the economic crisis touched off by the coronavirus began.  

Knotel has said publicly that it had $350 million in annual revenue lined up at the start of 2020. According to internal documents seen by Business Insider, the company had $335 million of annual revenue signed on near the end of the fourth quarter of 2019, $80 million short of its $422 million forecast.

In New York, Knotel signed just $5.8 million in net new contracts in the fourth quarter, compared with a goal of $51.5 million. Across the 15 cities globally where the company operates, it added about $50 million of new revenue in the quarter, $50 million short of its target.

Flex-office companies generally saw a slowdown in leasing activity in the fourth quarter, per CBRE data. Much of that industry-wide decline was driven by WeWork, though Knotel's drop in leasing – 70,000 square feet of new deals in the fourth quarter, a decline of 80% from its quarterly activity over the previous year – was much more precipitous than competitor Industrious, which was down 6.5%. 

The leaked financial documents also showed that Knotel had about 500,000 square feet of vacancy in its portfolio in December, a number that is projected to grow to 1.5 million square feet as it takes possession of additional spaces it has committed to lease.  

Read more: Knotel is scrambling to pay millions in bills that started stacking up before the coronavirus hit, and it's late on payments to some of New York's biggest brokerages

Knotel was, until recently, one of the fastest-growing brands in the booming coworking and flex-space field, emerging as a chief competitor to WeWork.

Covid-19 has upended the soaring sector as small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs that flooded into flexible workspaces in recent years have shed those locations or have stopped paying rent, leaving companies such as Knotel, in turn, with less cashflow to pay landlords.

Knotel has stopped paying some rent and vendors – and it has a backlog of payments that predates the coronavirus by many months, Business Insider reported.

"Given the unprecedented times we are witnessing due to the effects of Covid-19, the Knotel team is focused on balancing the interests of customers, partners, and investors, in efforts to build a sustainable, long-term business," Ivy Chiou, a spokeswoman for Knotel, said in a statement. "We are taking these steps to ensure we are well-positioned for both current times of great crisis, as well as when business returns to a new normal.

-Alex Nicoll contributed reporting. 

Have a tip? Contact Dan Geiger at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 352-2884. Contact Meghan Morris via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-1627 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or Twitter DM at @MeghanEMorris. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

 

Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week. 

As the coronavirus shuts down industries and keeps consumers at home, companies have been scrambling for cash to cope. We took a look at the advisers and investors who are gearing up amid the chaos. 

Alex Morrell listed top restructuring bankers who will help companies navigate the crisis. From Casey Sullivan and Bradley Saacks, here's a look at 10 Wall Street power players picking through up to $1 trillion in distressed debt to bag huge returns. And in case you missed it last week, Casey wrote about 10 lawyers who have navigated the biggest bankruptcies in history.

If you aren't yet a subscriber to Wall Street Insider, you can sign up here.

I also wanted to give a warm welcome to Dan Geiger, who joined the team as real estate correspondent on Monday. He's already broken big news about how real-estate tycoon Aby Rosen is abandoning $600 million worth of acquisitions in New York City. And he teamed up with Meghan Morris to report that WeWork competitor Knotel has stopped paying some rent and vendors (plus, they got a look at Knotel financials showing how it's fallen far short of sales targets.) 

Have a safe and healthy weekend. As always, my line is open at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

-Meredith

Fintech winners and losers

The coronavirus has thrown the real estate world into disarray, as people empty out of offices, hotels, and malls and work from their homes. The spread of the virus and the economic disruptions that have followed are transforming how people finance, operate, and occupy real estate. 

We've been tracking a slew of layoffs in the venture-backed real estate world, as empty short-term rentals and coworking spaces have hit once-buzzy industries hard. We are also keeping tabs on what experts are saying about the industry, and the future of offices as the virus has created the biggest experiment in remote work ever.

Have a tip about layoffs or major changes in this space? Contact this reporter through the secure messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-4772 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or Twitter DM at @AlexONicoll. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Here's everything we know right now: 

Richard Couch and Martin Pichinson get called some unflattering names — Dr. Death, Darth Vader, the undertakers of Silicon Valley.

But when times get tough at startups, they're often the ones who get called to try to salvage something out of the situation. And right now, as the coronavirus pandemic has spurred a sharp and what's starting to look like a calamitous economic downturn, they're fielding lots of calls.

"We are on more conference calls now than we probably ever have been," said Pichinson, co-president of Sherwood Partners, a Silicon Valley-based consulting firm. "People are absolutely trying to figure out what to do," he continued.

Pichinson and Couch, CEO of Diablo Management Group, which is also based in the Bay Area, specialize in finding resolutions for distressed companies, particularly venture-backed startups — ones that are running out of cash or prospects or are at some crisis point in their life cycle. Sometimes that means restructuring them. Sometimes that means selling them off. Sometimes that means shutting them down and getting what they can for the pieces that are left.

Even in good times, many startups don't pan out and lots of other companies fail, so Couch and Pichinson's services are constantly in demand. But in the wake of the economic shutdown due to the coronavirus, both have become popular figures in Silicon Valley.

"There's a pick-up in conversations, that's to be sure," said Couch, who is perhaps best known for being the person who shut down Pets.com after its business failed.

Some VCs are using the crisis to cull underperforming companies

Venture capitalists are talking to Couch and Pichinson's consulting firms about what to do with their struggling startups. The investors are using this moment to re-evaluate their portfolios, the consultants said.

Pichinson's firm is already getting calls from venture capitalists who want to cull their weaker and underperforming startups. These are companies they'd been thinking about ridding themselves of even before the crisis, he said. But the downturn has made that job more urgent. They want to clear things out so they can focus on their successful companies and are ready to invest in new ones after the crisis ends, he said.

The venture investors Couch is talking to aren't yet at that stage. Instead, they're combing through their portfolios and assessing the status of their companies, he said. 

Startups can be assigned a status of red, yellow, or green, depending on their health and outlook, Couch said. Green companies are those that are doing fine and can be left alone. Yellows are those that investors are watching frequently and that they know they're going to need to make decisions about soon, because the companies are going to need financing in the near future.

"There are a lot more yellow deals out there than there have been," Couch said.

New funding for many of those companies — at least from the venture industry — may not materialize, he said. The venture capitalists he's talking to are wary of investing more money in startups that are looking to raise a B, C, or D round at a flat or lowered valuation.

"People are reluctant to throw good money after bad," he said.

Cash preservation is paramount

Part of what's making these kinds of decisions — whether to shut companies down, whether to invest more in them — more pressing is that with the economy in turmoil, cash is starting to be harder to come by, Couch and Pichinson said. Some limited partners at venture firms are refusing to pony up money when the general partners put out a call for cash, Couch said. Meanwhile, some corporate venture offices are shut down and unable to follow through on investment commitments, he said.

While the federal government is offering loans to help small businesses and larger corporations get through the crisis, there are concerns that venture-backed startups may miss out on some of the aid. In recent weeks, numerous starts have been slashing jobs and cutting back on expenses.

"What's going on right this second is cash preservation," Pichinson said.

Both expect there to be widespread devastation ahead in the startup sector. The pandemic isn't likely to end any time soon and even when it does, it will be months, perhaps years before things return to any semblance of normal, they said.

And what will be normal after the crisis may not resemble what was the norm before it, Pichinson said. Few people are likely to want to attend a football game or a concert or even a movie in a theater anytime soon, he said. Those changing societal norms are going to have an impact on companies and investors.

"Where they may have invested a company yesterday, they may not tomorrow, because some new rules are being written," Pichinson said.

For the companies that get handed over Pichinson and Couch's firms, some will end up being sold to private equity firms after a restructuring. Some will see their teams join other companies as part of acqui-hire deals. And some will see their assets — everything from their patents and other intellectual property to their office furniture — sold off, in many cases, likely for pennies on the dollar.

"The market will develop over a three-to-six month period to one where there's a fair amount of turmoil," Couch said. Right now, he continued is the "calm before the storm."

Got a tip about startups or the venture industry? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Zoom never predicted any of this.

Once just a firmly corporate-focused video chat app, the service has gone gangbusters in recent months — boosted by unprecedented demand sparked by the pandemic, and the resulting human lockdowns across the globe. In the space of four months, it has soared from 10 million users to 200 million, hosting quiz nights, karaoke, virtual happy hours, and a million other unanticipated uses.

As CEO Eric Yuan wrote in an open letter to users at the beginning of April, "our platform was built primarily for enterprise customers – large institutions with full IT support ... we did not design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socializing from home."

It has risen to the challenge, but the strain is clear. It's facing numerous security scares, and organizations from Google to NASA have banned workers from using it, sending the company into damage control. 

But an unconventional solution presents itself. Zoom should consider allowing itself to be acquired by another company that is experienced in growing services rapidly, well-versed in the social web, and no stranger to weathering controversy: Facebook.

Hear me out.

First, there's the question of cost. As of this writing, Zoom's market cap is around $34.7 billion. There'd be a significant premium on that for any buyout, but it's still eminently doable for Facebook, which had $54.9 billion in cash on hand as of the end of 2019, and a market cap of almost $500 billion. (Facebook's also not afraid of splashing the cash: It spent almost $22 billion to acquire WhatsApp in 2014.) But what's the upside of absorbing Zoom?

Well, it makes total sense for Facebook.

Acquiring Zoom would help it stay on top of how people are interacting online today, giving it direct ownership of what is suddenly the hottest new social networking app on the planet. Facebook could funnel these users back into its other services, while enriching Zoom with its sophisticated augmented reality filters, video-chat games, and other features that fall outside of Zoom's traditional expertise. 

Similarly, buying Zoom would give Facebook its excellent underlying video-conferencing technologies, which the merged companies could then implement elsewhere. 

Zoom would also provide Facebook with an extraordinary boost to Workplace, its work platform targeted at businesses. Every corporate Zoom subscriber could be given access to new tools, growing Facebook's userbase and in turn (theoretically) enriching the business users' experience. And the acquisition would help further build out Facebook's enterprise sales team, lessening the company's still-overwhelming reliance on advertising revenue, a model that has been shaken by the pandemic.

There's also a clear benefit to Zoom. For years, growth has been Facebook's north star. While Zoom has held up extraordinarily well over the last few months' growth, all things considered, Facebook's experience in growing services to the point of billions of users is almost unparalleled. The much larger company could share invaluable lessons with Zoom. Facebook has also learned the extremely hard way about the underbelly of the internet — from hacking and data misuse to failures of content moderation — and it could help Zoom avoid the same mistakes.

It's not a perfect match, of course.

Facebook, like other big tech firms, is already facing increased antitrust scrutiny — and snapping up a $30 billion company would only intensify this. Facebook might decide the potential fight isn't worth its time right now, especially as it focuses on coronavirus-related initiatives and manages existing projects like its ambitious "pivot to privacy."

But the fact that Zoom isn't a traditional social networking firm means its purchase would set off fewer alarm bells than if Facebook were to buy another consumer app like Snapchat. Facebook is nowhere close to dominant in the enterprise software space where Zoom originated. And Facebook would still face weightier competitors in that space, such as Cisco and Google.

There are also redundancies with what Facebook is already building, and the company might view that duplication as outweighing the value Zoom could bring to the company. 

Also, Facebook has been battling scandals for years, from Cambridge Analytica to its role spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar. It might simply decide that it doesn't want to unleash any self-inflicted demons right now.

If Facebook decides it's up to the challenge, though, it would be one of the most audacious tech deals of the decade — and one that could propel both firms to new heights.

Do you work at Facebook or Zoom? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), standard email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). Use a non-work device to reach out. We can keep sources anonymous. PR pitches by standard email only, please.

The COVID-19 lockdown has turned advertising into an almost entirely virtual industry, and it's especially challenging for the production companies that cast, shoot, and edit ad campaigns.

25-year-old Tool of North America has produced videos, digital tools, and events for clients from Airbnb and Planned Parenthood to HBO's "Game of Thrones" and Amazon Prime's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."

Tool has gone through four economic downturns, and president Dustin Callif told Business Insider that experience prepared his company for the tough months ahead. Its new pitch deck, which follows below, promotes its ability to produce different kinds of work remotely.

COVID-19 shut down all commercial shoots, and the business won't be the same after the pandemic

Production companies can no longer do in-person shoots for ads, and the pitch deck reflects Tool's plan to keep business running until things return to normal.

Production companies are scrambling to present clients with the right mix of services, and commercial production won't be the same when the lockdown ends.

Nancy Hacohen, Tool's managing director, said social distancing will probably remain in place for months, which means production teams will have to be smaller and shoots more spaced out.

Callif also said clients have already grown less precious about the work; they're more interested in completing projects and moving on than making a video look perfect.

As brands plan their post-pandemic strategies, Tool is pitching itself for the short and long term

Most brands are just beginning to plan their post-virus strategies, but production continues nonetheless, and the average time from concept to execution has shrunk from two to six months to two weeks as brands release quick-hit work to show how they're responding to the pandemic.

Most of Tool's efforts involve either content filmed on webcam in someone's home or prep work for commercial shoots that will happen weeks or months from now.

Callif said Tool has many marketers and agencies reaching out for advice, and Tool is approaching business development calls with an educational rather than a sales approach.

Its deck focuses on campaigns that can be finished without shooting new footage using techniques like crowdsourcing, livestreaming, AR, and dynamic video, or repurposing existing material. It also positions Tool as a provider of everything from standard production to "celebrity integration" and legal services like FTC compliance.

When brands and agencies are ready to re-enter full production mode, Tool's hope is that presentations like the one below will help make it stand out.

Got more information about this story or another ad industry tip? Contact Patrick Coffee on Signal at (347) 563-7289, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or via Twitter DM @PatrickCoffee. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Oracle just raised $20 billion in corporate debt, setting off speculation the tech giant may be mulling a big purchase as the coronavirus crisis drives down market caps. 

"We believe the company could be preparing to make a significant acquisition given the likelihood that COVID-19 continues to pressure valuations in enterprise software," RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a recent note to investors.

Oracle is known for making bold M&A moves, especially after a downturn, when big tech mergers typically take place. Shortly after the dot-com crash, the company launched a hostile take-over of rival enterprise software maker PeopleSoft, which it acquired in 2005. Oracle also bought server giant Sun Microsystems and cloud software company NetSuite after the Great Recession.

Business Insider asked experts which companies Oracle could be eyeing for an acquisition. Here are the seven companies they said would be a good fit:

Zoom has become nearly synonymous with office meetings and socializing as people around the world have adapted to life at home amid the coronavirus outbreak. That has put the roughly 9-year-old company in the spotlight more than ever before — for both the good and the bad, as an onslaught of security issues have come to light. 

The biggest hurdle for Zoom moving forward, according to some security experts, isn't just fixing those issues. It's doing so in a way that enables Zoom to maintain the convenience that has made it so popular in the first place. 

"There are different security measures that you can implement, but again it comes back to this pendulum of security versus usability," said Etay Maor, chief security officer at cyber threat protection firm IntSights. "Where do you feel comfortable and where do your users feel comfortable?"

Zoom's security troubles

The teleconferencing app has surged in popularity over the last month, as it's hosted 200 million chat participants throughout March, compared with its previous all-time high of 10 million as of December 2019.

That has made the platform a ripe target for internet trolls. A new form of harassment known as Zoom-bombing has emerged in recent weeks, which is when intruders infiltrate a Zoom meeting and bombard participants with offensive content. The FBI has said that it received two reports of such incidents occurring in Massachusetts schools.

But that's just one of the security woes that have troubled Zoom over the past month. The company was hit with a class action lawsuit over accusations that it shared analytics data with Facebook without properly alerting users. Zoom also said that some calls were mistakenly routed through China as the company beefed up its server capacity in the country at the start of the outbreak.

The list of companies and organizations banning Zoom has continued to grow along with the security issues. Schools in New York City, the Taiwanese government, and Google have suspended usage of the popular video service. Singapore also recently told teachers not to use the service.

Security versus convenience

Enhancing Zoom's security while keeping the service as frictionless and accessible as it has been could be a particularly challenging balance for the company to strike. Joining a Zoom meeting can be as simple as clicking a link from your email or calendar invite. But adding layers of security often means implementing more steps for the user. 

"There's always a trade off between ease-of-use and usability," said Rob Davis, CEO of cybersecurity firm CriticalStart.

Two-factor authentication, for example, adds more security but also means the user needs to take that extra step of typing in the code sent to his or her phone. Enforcing tighter controls around how participants join a meeting could also make the process of adding colleagues or friends at the last-minute slightly longer. 

Stronger end-to-end encryption could also make it harder to maintain high call quality, one of the characteristics that makes Zoom so appealing, according to Satya Gupta, chief technology officer at web application security company Virsec.

"I suspect that this is going to be a serious problem for Zoom to be able to solve because, you know, when you encrypt and decrypt, it introduces lag and latency into a call," Gupta said.

For its part, Zoom has been quick to react to the myriad of issues that have emerged. It outlined a 90-day plan to make Zoom a security- and privacy-first product. As part of that plan, it's committed to freezing the development of new features to focus on increasing security, publishing a transparency report with information about data requests, and bringing in outside experts to evaluate its security practices among other measures.

The company recently tapped Alex Stamos, Facebook's former security chief, as an external consultant to help it ramp up its security. It has also made security settings easier for users to access, and now requires additional password settings for users on basic, free accounts and accounts with a single licensed user.

Still, Zoom could be more transparent about the measures it's taking, which makes it easier for other security professionals to assess the company's approach to security, Davis said.

"That allows other people to more easily ascertain, 'Have you taken the right steps?' Davis said. 

Zoom has said it will consult external security experts and form a council of chief information security officers from across the industry to discuss best practices when it comes to security. 

But the experts seem to agree that trading some conveniences for security is worth it. And juggling the two, especially within 90 days, will be a challenge.

"It's a hard balancing act that has to be performed," said Maor. "It's not an easy task." 

US Navy Vice Adm. Bill Merz, the commander of the United States' largest forward­-deployed fleet, visited the aircraft carrier reeling from a coronavirus outbreak and admitted the morale for some of its crew was negatively impacted by recent events.

"There was lots of anxiety about the virus," Merz told CNN. "As you can imagine the morale covers the spectrum, considering what they have been through."

The nuclear-powered USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is currently stationed in Guam, has been beset with a range of recent problems — including the firing of its commander, Capt. Brett Crozier.

On April 2, Crozier was relieved of command by the then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly after he emailed a four-page letter to over 20 people, warning about the coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship. The letter was eventually leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, which published its contents.

It was not immediately clear how the letter was leaked, but Navy leaders said they recently completed an investigation into the matter.

Modly scrutinized Crozier's decision to email the letter to the group and accused him of circumventing the service's chain of command. In a leaked 15-minute speech directly to the crew aboard the ship, Modly went on to suggest that Crozier was either insubordinate or "too naïve or too stupid."

Modly apologized for his remarks and resigned on Tuesday.

Crozier, who was hailed as a benevolent commander by many aboard the ship and Democratic lawmakers, has since been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. As Crozier left his ship, dozens of crew members, in close proximity with each other, saw him off by cheering him on.

Vice Adm. Merz, who saw the videos of the send-off, said his immediate reaction was "our job just got harder for us" because of the lack of social distancing. 

Merz told CNN the ship's crew was "struggling in the wake of losing their [commanding officer] and their perception of the lack of activity regarding fighting the virus."

Merz cited an apparent disconnect between information about the coronavirus and the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

"I think we could have told them earlier what we knew," Merz said. "The degree of accuracy against the virus at any level is a little sketchy, but I think we could have at least bought [sic] them in earlier and started having this dialogue up front."

"I certainly don't think it was malice by the ship or the leadership" Merz added. "I think it was just a matter of getting their arm around what they could and could not tell them."

Merz, like Modly and other Pentagon leaders, said he believed Crozier's "motives were pure" when he emailed his letter and that "he was looking out for his crew."

More than 2,300 of the carrier's roughly 4,800 crew members have been evacuated, and many of them are under quarantine in hotels in Guam. Over 445 crew members had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Friday.

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Amid unicorn layoffs, Boston startups reflect on the future

When Amy and I had life dinner on March 1st, we were both tired after a three-week trip to Boston, Miami, and Atlanta. As we discussed the potential impact of Covid, we talked about the current state of things in the US. The stock market had already had a 15% or so drop but there were less than 10 deaths (all in Seattle) from Covid in the US.

I remember us having an anxious evening that included the statement “I’m really glad February is over and we are back home in Boulder.” Prescient, but not really what we meant.

Life dinner on April 1st was very different. While the Colorado stay at home order went into effect on March 26th, Amy and I had already been in a stay at home mode starting March 11th. The last time I left my house was on March 10th for a board meeting and dinner with Mike Platt for Indian food at Jaipur.

Today is the first day since March 11th that I’ve felt any semblance of space to actually think, rather than react.

While there is a huge amount of intensity everywhere and the Covid crisis rages on, many of the things I’m involved in are now fully operational, the leaders are leading, and everyone I’m working with is focused on solving problems. I have much more situational awareness and perspective than I had even a week ago. While I don’t have answers to many things, I have hypotheses, am involved in trying lots of things, and am focused on being proactive, rather than just reactive.

Notwithstanding the stress and anxiety in the system, I felt a real emotional shift in the last few days among the people I’m involved with. There is less confusion, randomness, speculation, denial, and fear.

For much of my non-work work, I have built several teams of volunteers. I have been amazed at the willingness of people to volunteer, especially in a time of crisis that is impacting and disrupting so many of them.

The leaders have been remarkable and I continue to learn about leadership by working closely with them.

But even more remarkable is the large number of volunteers pitching in. Some are people I know while many are people I’ve met for the first time during the Covid crisis. The level, quality, and commitment of the work being produced is mindboggling. This seems to be true in both validating hypotheses and implementing stuff, as well as invalidating hypotheses and deciding not to continue to pursue a particular path any further.

I’ve written several things that have been rapidly implemented by volunteers in this crisis. Many direct benefits are wired into the local community, so there is a powerful feedback loop around feeling good about helping by actually helping.

I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the next few months, especially around the intersection of community with a complex system, which is the thesis at the core of my new book with Ian Hathaway called The Startup Community Way. I never expected to be living what I just spent three years with Ian coming up with and writing a book about.

To all the volunteers in Colorado that I am getting to work with right now, thank you for everything you are doing during this Covid crisis.