Executive Briefing

Coronavirus and the consumer

Also: MAD’s new fellowship and Amazon’s new grocery robots.

Like (surely) many of you, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks increasingly fixated on the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, thinking about its potential effects on business and society, and how technology will play a role in this and future global health crises.

I’m writing this having just begun a two-week trip to Europe — let me know if there’s anything interesting going on in Paris or London — and wondering what New York will be like when I get back.

The truth — and what makes this different than something like a hurricane, where we can all picture what the range of destruction looks like, at least the TV version, and there’s a somewhat predictable cycle — is that we simply do not know what’s going to happen or where.

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Dan Frommer

Hi, I’m Dan Frommer and this is The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their time and money.

I’m a longtime tech and business journalist, and I’m excited to focus my attention on how technology continues to profoundly change how things are created, experienced, bought, and sold. The New Consumer is supported entirely by your membership — join now to receive my reporting, analysis, and commentary directly in your inbox, via my twice-weekly, member-exclusive newsletter. Thanks in advance.

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