Pick your metaphor: It’s always darkest before dawn? The greater the storm the brighter the rainbow? Every cloud has a silver lining?

Anything goes, and that’s because we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that the best businesses are founded during and in the wake of major recessions and bear markets here in the U.S. It’s a startup trope as common as “down for the cause”—recessions breed good businesses. Uber, Airbnb, and several others serve as evidence. 

But is it all just circumstantial? That’s what we’re digging into today on Business Casual. Given that we’re in a pandemic-induced recession that started, by some accounts, in February, it’s high time we started thinking about what the next Uber or Airbnb might be.

To help us determine 1) whether recessions really do coincide with strong startup prospects and 2) why that is, I’m talking to Christine Tsai. Christine is the CEO and Founding Partner of 500 Startups, which is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010.

She’ll lay all the groundwork you could ever need to understand the ways businesses, both new and old, navigate economic downswings. And just as importantly, she’ll explain what being founded during a recession means for a business’s future prospects.

We’re also talking historical precedent from the last recession, the deeply unique qualities of this economic moment in time, and how the relationship between entrepreneurs and investors might evolve post-COVID.

Don’t miss out. You never know when you’re sitting on the next Airbnb. Listen now.