A colossal claimed breakthrough in electric car batteries: VW-backed QuantumScape says it has solved the decades-long problems preventing the use of volatile, pure lithium metal. 1/3 link.medium.com/2EcgqRmFt9 With the breakthrough, QuantumScape announces a $4 billion IPO, the first U.S. battery company to go public in a decade. 2/3

Bars and restaurants have been devastated by the lockdown of cities. But the longer this goes on, the far greater hit will be to a hidden, trillion-dollar economy linked to a much under-appreciated economic actor—the white-collar office worker. 1/5 marker.medium.com/remote-work-is… With JPMorgan, Twitter, REI, Pinterest and more postponing a return and scrapping their offices entirely, they have transformed once-teeming city business districts into ghost towns with essentially vacant skyscrapers. 2/5

After France's Reign of Terror, young people had a cathartic frolic—for about four years, until Napoleon took power. After WW I and the Spanish Flu, the Roaring ’20s carried London and New York into a new age of hilarity. But then came the Depression. gen.medium.com/the-harsh-futu… 1/6 The hope is that Covid-19 and the economic downturn will end with another delirious release — a rash of buying by exultant consumers, a new economic boom, and a return to work. They might. There will be parties galore and, pent up for so long, people will rush to the shops. 2/6

The century of the Black Death began with a mini ice age and torrential rain, ruining crops and spreading hunger among tens of millions of feudal age serfs. Then came the Plague, killing at least half the continent. 1/7 gen.medium.com/how-the-black-… 2/7 But the Plague also utterly changed everything: The wages of ordinary farmers and craftsmen doubled and tripled, and nobles were knocked down a notch in social status. The church’s hold on society was damaged, and Western Europe’s feudal system was on its way out.