Farewell 2020: the year the world became a startup

2020, you will be blamed by most humanity, because you challenged us, you changed how we work, how we socialize, how we live.

The whole World changed and forced us to adapt, still, most of us were not ready and a lot of people blamed just you, poor 2020 — honestly is not your fault at all: even if the virus was a natural cause changing our environment or bioengineered in a lab, does not change much, either way, we are the cause.

2020, for me, you were not such a big challenge, I was ready for you, thanks to the all past years were I lived out of the comfort zone.

As an entrepreneur and startup founder, remote work was and still is something normal for me.

Quarantine at home equals fewer distractions and more work and personal projects done: in fact, I founded my micro design and development agency Frontendbyte which honestly went beyond the expectations, and we only just started.

None of this would be possible, without WearHealth, the Startup company I am working for, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything: amazing people, awesome engineers, big ambitions to help workers feel safer, healthy, and more productive in a more than ever-changing and hostile environment.

2020, while for the last 7 years I was trained to survive you, most of my peers found it hard to adapt to the overnight change you threw at us: basically, you made the whole World a Startup.

Maybe your goal is to disrupt humanities bad habits, stop us from being selfish, re-think ourselves, adapt to the new environment, and gave us new opportunities to grow in the right direction.

2020, hope you taught us to become better humans

I won’t blame you, 2020, I am grateful for helping me to focus on what matters and for my family, my friends, my colleagues, my career, the growth I made, and the lesson I (re-)learned.

The most relevant lessons of you, 2020

• 2020 showed people that in order to be productive, you do not need to be at work, you need to be working smart.
• People are easy to manipulate, hypocrite and stupid rushing in a “Digital Middle Ages”: searching on Google (or DuckDuckGo) for flat Earth
• The mind is a universe and can turn heaven from hell or hell from heaven
• It is the excuses we give ourselves to justify the failures that keep us from progressing
• We call you a leader not because of your rank, or promotion, we call you a leader because you have the courage to go first, first to take the risk, first to trust, first to give honest feedback that everyone is afraid to tell you
• No matter how bad your year was, Intel was worst — Apple M1 just f*****d all x86 silicon industry
• Just because you are doing a lot more doesn’t mean you are getting a lot more done. Movement and true progress are a different thing.
• Empathy, individuals and interactions over selfish interest
• If someone is not in your future, you know the reason
• Design is the negotiation between stakeholders: what to include, what to leave out when to do what
• Creative and smart people see things for how they could be and not how they are
• What is the secret to internal well-being, do not argue with fools — Yes you are right!
• UI interface are like jokes: if you need to explain them they aren’t so good.
• Google global outage demonstrates the harm of big tech concentration of infrastructural power — taking everything for granted? Signing in with Google account in different accounts, and you could not access?
• Insane growth of stocks and crypto market: sell high, buy low

Moving forward

Overall dear 2020, you were not bad at all, actually, I am grateful for being in 2020 — Ok— there is something that could be better, beside traveling and being able to reach your families wherever they are, the hopes goes to all the little business that were forced to close, to all the families that are struggling right now, to all the people that are still suffering every day for hunger — you’re right 2020, this was something before you.

Farewell 2020, you made the World a Startup, yet very few will be missing you. Welcome, 2021 hope you help us continue to improve our planet and society overall.

Wish you all the best, 2021

p.s.

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