In the post “First Responses” I argued that the solution to the pandemic ― or any major problem ― is to produce our way out of it. Along with this observation we could make another: that the most important productive acts often come from the largest businesses, who have unique abilities to develop and mass produce novel goods and services.
Consider Corning, Inc., profiled in this New Yorker article. Having spent several years inventing what they call Valor Glass, a glass durable enough for manufacturing and transporting medicines, they are currently producing billions of vials, around the clock, for manufacturing and transporting COVID vaccines.
Their process is not for the faint of heart. In the photo above, for example, are converters, which “cut and shape tubes of Valor Glass into vials, which are then submerged in a molten-salt bath. Potassium atoms in the hot mixture swap with smaller sodium atoms embedded in the surface of the glass, creating tension and therefore toughness.”
You need not be a chemist to look at these machines and others in their factories and see that not every business could employ them. Corning ― at $11B in revenue, $30B in assets, 50,000 employees, and a long history of researching and producing glass ― can.
Though large businesses are sometimes criticized or feared solely because of their size, it is also worth remembering that without them, our lives would be immeasurably poorer.
Be First to Comment