Earlier today, Jack Dorsey sent an email to Twitter staff, notifying employees that they will be able to  continue working from home as long as they see fit. The CEO notes that Twitter was an early adopter of a work-from-home model, though — like much of the rest of the world — that push has been accelerated by COVID-19 stay at home orders.

You’re sitting at the table eating dinner when you receive a notification. A woman wearing a light blue top fills the screen of your phone with a video message. “Hello, this is Diane in Dr. Halpern’s office,” the woman says. “The computer saw that your blood sugar and heart rate numbers went out of range yesterday and today. I’d like you set up a quick virtual visit, okay?”

DURHAM, N.H.—All signs indicate that 2020 is likely to be a challenging time for angel investing and the negative impact could be similar to the post 2000 decline and the 2008-09 recession, according to new analysis by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. How lasting these impacts are will likely be determined by a myriad of factors, many of which are beyond the control of the angel investor.

When the First Round Review team asked me to write something about staying healthy in the time of COVID-19, I spent a sleepless night on a post about how to create behavior change during this stressful season. You can’t really blame me — I’ve been a behavioral scientist for more than 15 years and like everyone, when pressed, I default to what I know.

Image: Matt Wallaert, former Chief Behavior Officer at Clover Health - https://firstround.com

Does your startup or small business need research and development funding to commercialize your technology? Consider applying for the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) funding. It is easy to get started – just submit a three-page Project Pitch.

The total funding available is up to $1.75 million per company. In Phase I, companies receive up to $256,000 over 6 to 12 months to develop a proof-of-concept or prototype. If your technology needs more development and you've met the requirements, you can apply for Phase II funding up to $1 million over 2 years and the opportunity to apply for supplemental funding.

VCs are notorious for kicking tires.

VCs take a meeting just to learn about an area. If deal flow is slow, a VC will take a meeting if you and your team seem mildly interesting even if your product isn’t. Sometimes, if you seem well connected to other founders or VCs, that will get you a meeting—because you don’t want to miss something everyone else has seen.

Would you spend more than $10,000 for one of your favorite celebrity's fake nails or $5,000 for a used tissue?

From the iconic ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz" to One Direction singer Niall Horan's half-eaten toast, prized celebrity memorabilia has cost mega fans and private collectors boggling amounts of cash.

Image: This pair of signed Nike Air Jordan 1s sold for $560,000, making them the most expensive sneakers ever sold at auction. Courtesy Sotheby’s

The multitude of innovators and entrepreneurs around the world seemingly have taken an old political adage to heart: "Never let a good crisis go to waste." The massive spread of COVID-19 has been matched only by an equally impressive outbreak of innovation and creativity as economies and populations struggle from the effects of the disease.

Left literally to their own devices, home-bound employees reduce their community participation and experience higher emotional costs.

Before COVID-19, remote working was usually optional – a perk used sparingly, and viewed as a secondary option by many companies. Now, it is compulsory for as much as half the workforce in developed economies such as the United States. For many, this may persist even after returning to the office becomes a possibility.

How a virus spreads.

Interesting experiment in Japan.

Via NowThis #Coronavirus

#CoronavirusOutbreak #Covid19 #CoronavirusPandemic

Another early investor of Moderna is on the cusp of owning a stake worth at least $1 billion after the biotech firm reported encouraging early trial results for an experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

The value of board member Bob Langer’s 3.2% holding, including stock options, rose to $934.3 million Monday, as the shares surged 20% to a record $80 each. Langer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, would be at least the third individual with Moderna holdings topping $1 billion, joining Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel and Harvard University professor Timothy Springer.

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Langer

The SBA released its Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loan Forgiveness Application and clarified a few critical definitions and documentation requirements in their instructions. The forgiveness application is completed by the small-business borrower and is submitted to their bank or lender whom they received their PPP loan from. The application consists of 11 lines that when calculated results in the amount of forgiveness a small-business owner will be eligible for. The forgiveness component of PPP is what attracted small-business owners to take out PPP loans in droves, as the program promised forgiveness of amounts loaned so long as the small business used the funds for payroll, business mortgage interest, rent and utilities. For a summary on forgiveness rules please refer to my prior article here.

COVID-19 won’t stop most angel investors — though they likely will rethink strategies for growing their portfolios, an Overland Park-based professional association for angels said Monday.

 “Angels aren’t afraid to take educated risks, and they are passionate about developing fresh entrepreneurial talent through their startup investments,” said Patrick Gouhin, CEO of the Angel Capital Association. “Communities with strong ties between their startup ecosystems and groups of angel investors will rebound faster and more meaningfully from this crisis.”

Image: Patrick Gouhin, Angel Capital Association  

The Covid-19 crisis forced many businesses to suddenly adapt to having an entirely remote workforce. And once we all got past the novel challenges of family interruptions, #funnycatvideos, and virtual etiquette, a more complex problem raised its head: How do you work together when you are, in fact, alone?

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- At a time when more Americans are in need of assistance but fewer are in a financial position to be able to provide it, Gallup finds a new low in the percentage of Americans reporting they donated money to charity. Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults say they donated money to a charitable organization in the past year, surpassing the prior low from the Great Recession era. The percentage who say they have volunteered time to a charity is down from prior years, but not the lowest it has been.

Image: https://news.gallup.com

One of the biggest challenges we all face when put into business leadership roles is how to communicate most effectively. As a mentor to entrepreneurs over the years, I see many of you who don’t communicate enough, others who seem to do all the talking, and some that are hesitant to be direct and open. I find that having the right mindset is key to getting all these right.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The lack of treatment options for COVID-19 patients, potential promise in repurposing drugs, and controversy surrounding the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine have created a storm of questions about the drug’s efficacy that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is ready to answer. To do that, the organization is sponsoring a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether hydroxychloroquine, given in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin, can prevent hospitalization and death due to COVID-19.

The specter of war is frequently invoked in discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic. Heads of state and government leaders from Donald Trump to Emmanuel Macron have employed wartime rhetoric to describe the crisis—“we are at war,” Macron declared in his March television address announcing a nationwide lockdown, while Trump has tweeted about the virus as “the invisible enemy.” And as the death toll rises in the United States, many have made comparisons to the number of those killed in the Vietnam War.

Michael Moore’s surprising anti-renewable’s and environmental-movement documentary “Planet of the Humans” unmasks the trillions being spent on wind turbines and solar panels that do not deliver as advertised. The movie attacks men like Al Gore, David Blood and Elon Musk for making billions through renewable taxpayer handouts, and electric vehicle production that strip landscapes of wilderness and precious minerals leaving them uninhabitable and worthless for plants and trees. The ecological destruction left in the wake of renewable energy to electricity farms and subsidized biomass-fueled power plants is cynical at best, and mercenary in their ability to destroy nature’s ability to alleviate the coronavirus via cleaner air.

Every Western institution was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, despite many prior warnings. This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade, but it’s not too early to ask why, and what we need to do about it.

Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political party or another, on one government or another. But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared — and despite hard work and often extraordinary sacrifice by many people within these institutions. So the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation.