4min chapter

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Shutdowns, Stimulus Measures, & Small Businesses

a16z Live

CHAPTER

Small Businesses

"I advocated for having a, you know, space to make sure that your custom s, ah, didn't feel like their personal space was being impinged upon," he says. "My man issue has been that, youknow what, the government is taking away from many small businesses in the name of public health ... and then the question is, how do you actually compensate the business?" He adds: "It's just very sad for me walking down even like california avenue and downtown, like the other downtown in polawalto,. and the number of vacant places."

00:00
Speaker 1
Now, i remember that, yeand
Speaker 2
there is, there is the film crew that we operea quotq restaurant that wasn't a restaurant, that was wide of
Speaker 1
ye. And so i think, you know, you'd see examples like that that, i think, led to extreme frustration. And my, my recommendation was always to try to let people have the most flexibility to create the safety net themselves. And, you know, ket like i i advocated for mass i advocated for social distance. I advocated for having a, you know, space to make sure that your custom s, ah, didn't feel like their personal space was being impinged upon. But beyond that, i felt like too strict a regulation was going to be impossible to maintain over time. And if you needed to change it to your point, the frustration was so extreme, like, waiht, i made my table six feet already. Now i need to make em et but, you know, like, i already set up everything. And i think those things were incredibly frustrating the small businesses. Yes,
Speaker 2
i wasn't trying to comply that the small businesses weren't complying. It was more they didn't have infinite funs with which to do these things. I it's otle either you got lucky or didn't like somehow indoor dining and airports is fine, but indoor dining elsewhere not. And then you might think, that's unfair. So it was this very bizarre thing where it made some people mega, mega winners. I mean, there were some small businesses and large businesses that did great out of this. There were some large businesses that did terribly, you know, cube carnival crews lines and e arab lions and others. And then the there were some that, there were some small businesses that did terribly as well. They tried their best, but nthe. It's just very sad for me walking down even like california avenue and downtown, like the other downtown in polawalto, and the number of just, like, vacant places because these businesses just, they couldn't, they couldn't make it work. And there's at view, because its no my views, i largely agree with you. Like my view, as i aways viewed this s eminent domain, like the government, if they want to shut down anybody in the name of public health, i think they should be able to. What i don't like is this not compensating them part right? Because the government could say, i need your, your house, in the land on which it sits to go build the highway. And i can say, no, i don't want to sell it. But the government could say, yes, you will, and i'm exercising my right of eminent domain. E goes back to english common law, were the monarch everything wasin a sovereign. And the sovereign could reclaim it, but actually had to give restitution to the landowner. And it actually applies to businesses as well. So, you know, my man issue has been that, youknow what, the government is taking away from many small businesses in the name of public health, which is a very good reason, and is effectively solvency. And then the question is, like, how do you actually compensate the business for that? And i thought that would be kind of an nteresting thing to talk about, because, you know, the way that p p p worked, and it was hard to do, because the government normally is collecting money from businesses, not sending money to businesses. So there was that complication. But i guess, you know, how do you do this, right? Because you could say, we're just going to give you the exact same amount of revenue that you as a business made every other month of as long as you pay all your employees. But what if you're like the halloween store, like the real halloween store, right? It's like, ok, well, you know, october was a good month, un then, like, it all fell apart of november. But that happens every year. What do you think the right way of dealing. I if you agree that, you know, the government should be able to shut down in the name of public health, i the government should make these small businesses whole. Because if you have 30 million businesses that just disappear to morrow, then employ no tens and tens of millons of people, that's catastrophic.
Speaker 1
E what is what is the right answer? It's almost half of the us. Economy is, like, employed by small businesses. It's an extraordinary number. There are 30 million small businesses in the united states, and 20 million, 23 million, are soleprop s. I think, you know, extending p p p is a good thing, and getting that money on to small businesses, i, you know, one of the things that's frustrating in p p p is the way that the dollar amount is derived.

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