Anniversary of the dread

Mar 14, 2021 – we got eligible inmates of our household vaccinated. 
And Mar 14 of 2020 came flashing back.

It was on this day that I attended a group call with a VC from China. And I was bemused no end. He was talking of literal catastrophe at his end. He’d been locked down for more than 2 months. There was veritable curfew, the economy had crashed 40% and there was just no end in sight. I remember that lump in the throat.

He directed us to read a Sequoia piece that’d been published a week ago. It was more bearish. It predicted Covid-19 to be a black swan event that will affect all businesses like never before. All were to re-plan, save and extend their cash runways.

I remember thinking (I’d been a consultant to GSK Vaccines in the past) that it’s just a mere influenza and a vaccine was around the corner, if there wasn’t one already. I remember seeing Kerala atop the “affected” charts in India. I knew, though, that they’d fought out Nipah well. Oblivious and undeterred, I went back to work, till the world turned upside down in the next 10 days.

It may be wrong to re-count losses, learnings, stories and achievements of THE event of our lives with the virus not gone yet. Nevertheless, this day and week will be etched as the anniversary of the dread.

Read more from CEO speaks Column:-
–The NRN learning
–Being a tulip farmer