Recently in New York, as in other cities, the coronavirus pandemic has spurred an urgent shift from working in offices to working at home and given a massive boost to digital platforms for telecommuting, teleconferencing, and online teaching. Yet the tech industry has also generated some of the most significant spaces for face-to-face interaction of recent years. These are the hackathons, meetups, startup accelerators, and innovation districts that make up a globally hegemonic innovation complex.

You’ve likely heard the terms “essential business” and “non-essential business” mentioned on the news quite a bit lately. But these are technically not new concepts. So what is an essential business and nonessential business? And what do these terms mean to small companies today?

Currently, concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic have caused cities and states around the country to order the closure of various nonessential businesses in the interest of maintaining public health through social distancing.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a coronavirus test that can deliver a diagnosis in 45 minutes. 

The test, made by California-based Cepheid, got emergency clearance on Saturday, eight days after the agency gave fast-track approval for a test by Roche, which can diagnose the novel coronavirus within three hours. Medical-equipment giant Thermo Fisher also has a test on the market.

These kid-friendly museums in NYC and across the globe are offering virtual tours and exhibits, so you can experience culture from your couch.

For many of us, visiting a museum is a luxury we take for granted. While this city offers some of the world’s most masterful works, we rarely take the time out of our busy schedules to see them. That’s why it’s fortunate (and perhaps ironic) that now, while we’re staying home with time to spare, is the time we can lose ourselves in exhibits.

At the heart of the traditional approach to strategy lies the assumption that executives, by applying a set of powerful analytic tools, can predict the future of any business accurately enough to choose a clear strategic direction for it. The process often involves underestimating uncertainty in order to lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise to be captured in a discounted-cash-flow (DCF) analysis. When the future is truly uncertain, this approach is at best marginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous: underestimating uncertainty can lead to strategies that neither defend a company against the threats nor take advantage of the opportunities that higher levels of uncertainty provide.

As concerts are postponed, sporting events are canceled, schools are closed and tourist hot spots are shut down, experts recommend that even those who show no sign of illness stay home during this time of global pandemic. 

That's right: It's advised that you self-quarantine.

Although remaining inside is a good way to protect yourself and others from the coronavirus, and is an important measure to help "flatten the curve" of daily cases that put pressure on our health care system, it could lead to a lesser evil: boredom and stir craziness. 

Image: https://www.usatoday.com

Jeff Richards, managing partner of GGV Capital, speaks to Bloomberg's Emily Chang about how the coronavirus is impacting venture capital in Silicon Valley. He appears on "Bloomberg Technology." (Source: Bloomberg)

Image: https://www.bloomberg.com

The novel coronavirus has spread to over 160 countries and territories. The United States alone has over 9,400 cases and 152 deaths from the new disease.

The outbreak has had an effect on almost everyone's daily life in some way, as schools and businesses shutter to stem the spread. Hospital staff in particular are confronting the virus every day and putting their own health at risk to help test or treat those infected by coronavirus.  

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans are concerned about loved ones in at-risk groups and the capacity of our hospitals and medical system to address those in need—all while making extraordinary efforts to follow social distancing and work-from-home guidelines.

Perhaps the most important ongoing development of the coronavirus, however, is the research and development that drug companies are dedicating to discovering both treatments and vaccines.

When we imagine the pathway to becoming an entrepreneur, we often envision a linear track: quit your job and start a business. Being an entrepreneur is an all or nothing proposition, right? Not always. Like many things in life, the pathway to entrepreneurship can be more winding and accidental.

Despite the fact that older adults are most at risk, Millennials have taken on an outsized role in the COVID-19 pandemic. During press briefings, the Trump Administration has zeroed in on young adults, calling on them, specifically, to stay home and practice social distancing to slow the transmission of the virus. Stories about healthy young people who contracted serious cases of COVID-19 have gone viral on social media.

Image: A woman wearing a mask shops for cleaning supplies at a Kroger in Bloomington. Barcroft Media via Getty Images—Jeremy Hogan / Echoes Wire/ Barcroft Studios / Future Publishing

In February, when Jacob came home from an international trade show in Arizona with a cough, he wasn’t concerned. He slept in a separate room so that his hacking wouldn’t disturb his wife, Caitlin.

But within days, Jacob developed a fever and a sore throat so raw it felt like hamburger meat. He could barely sleep or eat. Caitlin sent their doctor’s office a note describing Jacob’s symptoms, and when Jacob arrived for an exam, “they almost tackled him to get a mask on him when he walked in the door,” Caitlin says. “The doctor told us it might be COVID-19.”

The most common misperception of entrepreneurship is that what makes a successful business is the idea for a unique product — that if you just have that one great idea that nobody has thought of before, a type of product that nobody has envisioned, you can make tons of money and the world is at your feet. Entrepreneurship-as-a-Great-Idea makes for a good story, but it is good only as a story, because the story is fantasy. And if you rely on what is fantasy rather than reality, you are likely to fail.

In the midst of an unprecedented pandemic, Tufts University, Middlebury College, and New York University are considering how to donate their dorms and other buildings to local hospitals in case of a surge in patients.

If the spread of the new coronavirus in the United States isn’t controlled, the number of Covid-19 patients needing hospital care is expected to far outstrip the number of available beds, according to a recent estimate from researchers at the Harvard Global Health Institute. Meanwhile, colleges have sent hundreds of thousands of students home from their residence halls in an attempt to reduce the number of students living in close proximity.

Image: Beginning on March 25, all Tufts U. instruction will be conducted virtually for the remainder of the semester; its president has called on colleges to offer their dorms to serve their communities, if needed.

As the coronavirus crisis forces more companies to participate in a massive experiment in remote working, it raises questions about how work might change when the health crisis passes, and if companies may be more open to alternative forms of working in the future—including not just letting employees work from home but allowing new variations in schedules, such as the four-day workweek.

Image: Source Image: oatintroiStock

If running a business hard, keeping that business going for more than a century is almost impossible.

According to the BLS, only 15% of businesses make it one decade. 20% don’t even last a year. Yet, in every state there are notable exceptions that have defied the odds.

The 50 businesses below have defied the odds and all been in operation more than 100 years. Some companies pre-date their state’s admission into the union. A few are even older than the United States.

Image: https://www.zippia.com/

The rapid global spread of COVID-19 (or the novel coronavirus) has led to canceled events, closed venues and postponed movie premieres and athletic competitions. Many are now turning to social distancing, the CDC-recommended practice of reducing close contact with other people, to do their part in helping to address the pandemic.

A new initiative from a Los Angeles investor is taking stock of venture firms and their ability to commit capital in an effort to match firms that are still open for business and cutting checks to startups that are fundraising in the age of COVID-19.

Laurent Grill, one of the investors at Luma Launch (which is the corporate investment arm of the film studio Luma Pictures), has been working in the Los Angeles venture community building and backing startups for about a decade. Over that time, Grill has put together a fairly impressive Rolodex, and in these times of uncertainty, he’s putting that Rolodex to work.

Following up on the recent article Two Maryland Biotechs Partner to Bring Coronavirus/COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate into Clinical Trials, BioBuzz had the opportunity to speak with Emergent BioSolutions Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Technical Operations, Sean Kirk.

Let’s start by having you provide a brief background on your role at Emergent.

I have been with the company for nearly 17 years, and have had the good fortune of working in and being responsible for many key parts of the business including manufacturing operations, quality assurance, regulatory affairs, product development, U.S. government program management, global operational excellence, global supply chain, medical and clinical affairs. In these roles I have spent a lot of time across Emergent’s sites and have been based in Lansing, Mich. – where I started – Gaithersburg, Md, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. I am currently responsible for the oversight of global manufacturing operations, supply chain management, global operational excellence, medical/clinical/regulatory affairs, and our CDMO Business Unit, and I am based out of our headquarters in Gaithersburg.

Image: https://biobuzz-io.cdn.ampproject.org

Based on my years of experience in both startups and large companies, trusted relationships are more the key to success than a great business model, how smart you are, or how much money you have. Aspiring entrepreneurs who struggle in a corporate environment often can’t wait to start their own company, only to find that relationships are even more critical and volatile there.