Crash Landing

It was the ultimate test for CEOs, and almost none of them saw it coming. In early March 2020, with the Dow Jones flirting with 30,000, the world's biggest companies were riding an eleven-year economic high. By the end of the month, millions would be out of work, iconic firms were begging for bailouts, and countless small businesses were in freefall. Slick consulting teams and country-club connections were suddenly of little use: business leaders were fumbling in the dark, tossing out long-term strategy and making decisions on the fly—decisions, they hoped, that might just save them. In Crash Landing, award-winning business journalist Liz Hoffman shows how the pandemic set the economy on fire—but if you look closely, the tinder was already there. Based on astonishing access inside some of the world's biggest and most iconic companies, this is a gripping account of the most remarkable period in modern economic history, revealing how they battled against an economic catastrophe for which there was no playbook: among them, AirBnB's Brian Chesky, blindsided by a virus in the middle of a high-stakes effort to go public; American Airlines's Doug Parker, shuttling between K Street and the White House, determined to secure a multi-billion-dollar bailout; and Ford's Jim Hackett, as his assembly lines went from churning out cars to ventilators. Crash Landing reveals the fear, grit, and gambles of the pandemic economy, while probing its implications for the future of work, corporate leadership, and capitalism itself, asking: Will this remarkable time give rise to newfound resilience, or become just another costly mistake to be forgotten? A gripping account of the financial carnage of the pandemic, revealing the fear, grit, and gambles that drove the economy's winners and losers.