, Columnist
How Covid Inspired a New Generation of Entrepreneurs
The pandemic forced everyone to adopt new technology and rethink their jobs, spurring our economy to lean in to independent work.
The pandemic inspired a surge in new businesses.
Photographer: Paras Griffin/Getty Images
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Humans normally respond to big unforeseen shocks in one of two ways: either they recoil from risk-taking like we saw after the Great Depression, leading to creation of the modern welfare state and a generation that feared the stock market; or they accept that risk is part of life and learn to embrace it — like they did in the Roaring Twenties after the 1918 flu and 1920 recession.
So far it looks like we’re going with the 1920s — at least from an economic risk perspective. Entrepreneurship rates are up.