Coronavirus Impact Being Felt by Big Tech in Pacific Northwest: Business Casual

 

On this episode of Business Casual, Voice of B2B Daniel Litwin and host Tyler Kern discuss the continued fallout of the spread of coronavirus and the concerns that come alongside it.

As of late, major tech giants in the Pacific Northwest, in particular in Seattle, have had to send employees home to work remotely. The industry’s true juggernauts – Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook – have all been affected.
The state now has 70 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 10 deaths as of last week, a number that will likely continue to rise in the coming days and weeks.

According to The Verge’s breakdown of the impacts on these industry giants, Amazon has instituted a full work-from-home policy until the end of March, Facebook has closed a Seattle office and is encouraging the same work-from-home timeline, Google has asked employees to work from home if at all possible, and Microsoft has sent employees home until March 25th.

However, the issues surrounding a seemingly simple effort are numerous. How effective are current remote-work tools? If you feel ill and your allotted time off runs out, is it unethical to return to work? Do work-from-home policies even work?

“It’s really interesting,” Kern said. “Any time something like this happens, it causes you to, on some level, reevaluate the physical being in a place when you can virtually be there and accomplish similar things.”

Click here to catch up on all the most consequential B2B news and takes on Business Casual!

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the Healthcare Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

filmmaking
Lights, Camera, Authenticity: Why Trusting Your Voice Is the Most Radical Move in Filmmaking Today
February 3, 2026

The entertainment industry is at a crossroads, where questions of access, authorship, and technological disruption are reshaping who gets to tell stories—and how those stories get made. From the rise of AI-assisted tools to ongoing conversations about representation and gatekeeping, filmmaking today is as much about identity and equity as it is about craft….

Read More
AI in energy
May the Agentforce Be With You: AI in Energy Services
February 3, 2026

Generative AI has moved past being a shiny demo and into the messy reality of enterprise operations—where data lives in different systems, customers expect instant answers, and security teams (rightfully) say “prove it.” In energy services specifically, even small efficiency gains matter: many retail energy providers operate on thin margins, and operational blind spots—billing…

Read More
Energy billing
Nightmare on Revenue Street: Energy Billing Edition
February 3, 2026

Energy billing is one of those things most people only think about when something goes wrong—an unusually high charge, a missing bill, a surprise shutoff notice, or a rate plan that suddenly doesn’t make sense. With smart meters, more complex pricing options, and different rules in regulated vs. deregulated markets, even a small breakdown…

Read More
career coaching
Work-Based Learning & Career Coaching with Strada Education: Closing the Gap Between Education and Opportunity
February 2, 2026

As higher education faces mounting pressure to demonstrate clear career outcomes, institutions are rethinking how learning connects to work and the role of career coaching in that process. Employers continue to report skills gaps, students are questioning the return on investment of a degree, and states are demanding stronger alignment between postsecondary education and…

Read More