Experts predict an economic recession that could last anywhere from a few months up to two years. Due to the downturn, venture capitalists are spending most of their time working with their portfolio companies, making sure they have enough runway to stay afloat. In fact, investors are slowing down overall: Angel investors who had money in the stock market — as most do — lost a lot of cash when the market nose-dived in March in the midst of coronavirus panic. While the market has bounced back somewhat, many investors are more cautious of making new deals in the midst of this volatility. 

With each passing day, the strip club in downtown Manhattan grew a little emptier. Fewer customers were drinking premium liquor and eating steaks in the plush banquettes; fewer patrons were sitting at the edge of the blue-lit stage; fewer clients were throwing dollar bills at the dancers performing on poles or in their laps. “It felt weird. There was an air of desperation, almost,” Nico, a dancer at the club, told me. As the city slowly woke up to the spread of the coronavirus this spring, so, too, did the dancers at clubs across town, whose work necessitates being physically close to strangers: talking to them, consoling them, and entertaining them.

Early in her career at Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg had a series of conversations with Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s vice president of operations. Palihapitiya was at a crossroads. He had joined Facebook barely a year before, leaving a job as a venture capitalist. Previously, Palihapitiya had been a VP at AOL, the youngest person to hold that position at the company. During his time there, AOL wound up doing a small deal with Facebook that linked AOL Instant Messenger to Facebook’s website. But the biggest outcome of the deal was the connection Palihapitiya formed with Mark Zuckerberg.

In November of 2017, Bytedance acquired Musical.ly for $1 billion. In August of 2018, Bytedance officially rebranded Musical.ly and TikTok into one app. Shortly after, ByteDance raised $3 billion and was valued at ~$75 billion. Analysts estimate its 2019 revenue was anywhere from $16-20 billion, up 100% from 2018. Its market share of the Chinese digital ad market has grown from zero to 22%, up from only 5% in 2017. TikTok has become the best way to create and consume short videos on mobile. It rode the wave of AirPods and audio memes to over 1 billion DAU’s (Daily Active Users), and is likely worth ~$200 billion. This would make it not only the world’s most valuable "startup” but one of the world’s most valuable companies, period.