The Inside Story of How the World's Biggest Companies Survived an Economy on the Brink
January 2, 2023
Lockdowns force giant corporations to their knees in this animated recap of the Covid-19 collapse. Journalist Hoffman draws on interviews with CEOs and Wall Street investors to recreate the pandemic’s impact on companies like Hilton Hotels and Airbnb, whose occupancies cratered; American Airlines, which lost most of its bookings to travel bans and fear of contagion; Ford Motor Company, which had to close its auto factories; and investment bank Goldman Sachs, which confronted chaotic markets where, briefly, demand for U.S. Treasury bonds—“normally the most easily tradable financial asset in the world”—dried up. It’s a narrative of panic, scrambles for loans from suddenly hostile banks, supplications for government bailouts (the airlines’ epic negotiation with treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, congressmen, and union adversaries to secure a $50 billion lifeline is a centerpiece), and adroit improvisation. Later chapters find executives flummoxed by the “Great Resignation,” which saw “more than twenty-seven million Americans quit their jobs between September of 2020 and the end of 2021.” The author embroiders her lucid rundown of financial and managerial travails with piquant anecdotes. Savvy analysis and colorful reportage make this an engrossing boardroom view of an economic cataclysm. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary.