Pandemics rhyme! If you study the history of them back to the Greeks they have three distinct phases. The Shock, The Shortage and then Productivity Phase. Again and Again through history with each pandemic one can see this pattern. What can we learn from history and apply to the Covid pandemic.

Lets take the Black Plague in 1346.

The Shock: much of the economy was Serfs living in subsistence living working for the Lord of the Estate. Then the Black Plague happened and 70-200m deaths happened.

The Shortage: Labour was in short supply. The serfs that stayed renegotiated there working arrangements with the Lord of the Estate.

The Productivity Phase: This brought on the emergence of the craftsman and the apprenticeship model. High paid jobs in the city. The leather smith, the iron working trades, the gold smiths and on and on. This shift drove a rethinking of division and nature of labour because of the shortage.

Today we are phase 2, The Shortage. The shortage of knowledge workers. the renegotiation of labour on the estate - starbucks, amazon warehouse unionisation.

Whats next. The AI enabled worker. The enterprise wants to make all employees more productive. This fuels the need to AI adoption and a super cycle of investment and adoption over the next decade.