Life in a post-COVID world with Peter, Ben, Bina, Nick, and Eduard

[JnBrymn]

Today Peter, Ben, Bina, Nick, Eduard, and I met for a random brainstorming discussion around what the future will be like post-COVID. It was a great discussion! Here are some of the highlights:

• Remote work. This could go either way:
• On one hand, there are a lot of people trying remote work for the first time and finding they love it:
• Companies don't need big expensive offices.
• Workers don't need to commute. (For me I gained >350 hours per year when I started working from home.)
• No more distractions. Communication is much more intentional.
• The telepresence technology has improved to such a point that you can have meaningful interactions. It feels like you are present.
• But not everyone is having this experience. Lots of companies and people are new to remote work and the problems attending our special circumstances might be attributed to remote work.
• Many parents are working from home for the first time and also struggling with no childcare and extreme distraction.
• Companies who's employees have child or elder care are seeing much less work accomplished and might attribute this to remote work.
• Remote life. If big cities are seen as harbors of contagion, and if you can get work done even when living in a remote place, then maybe we see a trend toward rural living.
• Internet access by Elon Musk's fancy-pants satellite internet.
• No more shopping. All supplies brought in via delivery. Last-mile delivery made economically feasible with automated, slow-moving electric transport.
• In Nashville, when we finish a roadwork project to add a new lane to the interstate, we start a new roadwork project to add another lane. ... But if people don't go downtown except for special occasions, then do we really need big city roads? Maybe we won't need to expand our transit system for a while!
• Neighborhoods
• Some of the attendees experienced extreme social distancing in their neighborhoods. I have experienced the opposite. It's not that people are hugging - we're still keeping greater than 6 feet distance (much greater). But after families are cooped up in their houses all day there are LOTS of families taking walks in the afternoon. I've met lots more neighbors now than I ever did before.
• Long odds bet - if restaurants fall out of vogue, then neighborhood AirBnB-style food experiences will replace them. Rather than going out, you go to a neighbor's house and enjoy a meal with them and pay them for it.
• Opportunities
• Augmented/Virtual Reality - What was a fun, but gimmicky idea to this point will become an important augmentation to the existing telepresence technologies.
• Gaming - people will look for new ways to get together even when they can't be physically present. Lots of people are already using games for this.
• From Ben "My friends are playing Minecraft. It's weird... we are little block people in a block world, but there is a feeling that we are together.
• Venture Capital - most VC conversations have historically happened offline. Now there is no choice other than having them online. The savvy VCs will recognize that geography is no longer a constraint and the smart money will go to the best ideas regardless of whether or not it's based in a traditional startup hub.
  
• Move toward manufacturing. We have seen a need for products that are manufactured elsewhere. (Namely, medical supplies!) With so many people out of jobs and with entire industries displaced, will we see a move back towards more manufacture?
• General ideas and observations:
• It takes a month to break habits. This month is a month where all the habits get questioned, broken, thrown in the trashcan, and replaced with new things. What will change just because we have an interruption that breaks habits?
• We are becoming more connected right now. My personal experiences:
• I have talked more with my family than I have in a long time. We have had 3 way video chats (my family, my parents, my sister's family). And we have a standing chat message on our phones.
• My and my wife both attended old social meetup groups because, for the first time ever, they were available online so that we didn't have to go across town.
• "Screen time is bad" but my daughter had a 2 hour playdate with a friend on Facebook Portal and where she read stories as the AR interface morphed her into the characters that she was readin.

What an interesting discussion! Thanks, All!