Covid winners

Like all other crises throughout history, it is not a season of losses for everybody. There are always chances, gains and benefits for some. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon nearly doubled his gigantic wealth just in 8 months, expanding it by 87 billion $ more. All online businesses have flourished. Visa, Pfizer, Microsoft and others have made huge profits. The global hand sanitizer market had 600% growth, reaching 1.87 billion $. The wealthiest 500 billionaires have augmented their worth by 813 billion $.

In the eyes of conspiracy theorists, all of those have contrived, manufacturing the pandemic to win such gains. Trumpians might think differently, but still within the conspiracy zone. Well, it must be the democrats and Chinese who made it up to interpose America’s march to be great again before the next elections. The same goes for populists following Bolsonaro in Brazil or Sisi in Egypt. Evil enemies of the state are trying to destroy it.

Elements for excellence

But this is not the case indeed. If a volcano erupts tomorrow, these winners will still make immense profits and America’s presumed march will be suspended. If aliens invade the earth, the same will happen. There is not necessarily a causal relationship between the winners and losers of any event.

Rationally thinking, the winners made such returns due to 3 elements: Readiness, flexibility and creativity. You can add to them perseverance at personal level . “Half the genius is perseverance” as once quoted from Naguib Mahfouz, the famous Egyptian literature Nobel laureate.

Having these elements will massively boost your position whatever the situation you are in.

The creativity has been there all the time at Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, google, You tube. The founders just cemented it with the other elements.

At governmental level, look at the example mentioned in article 34 of this book, the most successful country during the pandemic, which has not received any support from WHO or the international community: Taiwan. Years before the pandemic they had 124 procedures to face such situation in case it happens, already approved by the president (readiness). They implemented them at once and kept the economy going (flexibility).

An unfair world

The billionaires who gained from the pandemic just had enough readiness and flexibility to shift their businesses from whatever sector they were investing in to healthcare and Technology.

But how can the tea plantation workers in India be that ready and flexible after their only source of income was suspended due to quarantine?

How can the 2 million textile workers in Bangladesh be ready and flexible to make a living after cancelling orders and shutting down their factories?

What about waiters in restaurants and airlines hosts who were fired?