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

team
When Your Team Becomes the Bottleneck
February 25, 2026

In a candid take on organizational blind spots, Mollie Gaby, Principal at CG Infinity, highlights a hard truth many leaders avoid: sometimes your biggest pain point isn’t your technology or your strategy — it’s your staff. A common red flag is resistance to change. When team members are unwilling to explore new tools, automate…

Read More
asset visibility
Diagnosing Your Capital Asset Health: Why Asset Visibility Is the New Financial Imperative in Healthcare
February 25, 2026

Hospitals and surgery centers own millions of dollars in equipment — but owning assets and having actionable visibility into them are two different things. Most systems maintain inventories, yet many struggle with outdated records, fragmented tracking, and limited insight into useful life or service contracts. With nearly half of U.S. hospitals reporting negative operating…

Read More
CFO
From Public Accounting to CFO: The Leadership Wake-Up Call
February 25, 2026

The CFO seat is being rewritten in real time. Today’s finance leaders are expected to drive growth, lead enterprise-wide systems transformations, and shape AI strategy—while still keeping the close, controls, and capital story airtight. Gartner reports that 59% of finance leaders are already using AI in the finance function, underscoring how rapidly the role is…

Read More
restorative practices
Building Safer Schools Through Restorative Practices
February 24, 2026

School Safety Today podcast, presented by Raptor Technologies. In this episode of Principals of Change, host Dr. Amy Grosso sits down with D’Jon Pitchford, Assistant Principal at Kelly Lane Middle School in Pflugerville ISD, to explore what school safety really means. Pitchford reframes safety as more than physical security—emphasizing trust, restorative practices, campus culture,…

Read More