In Adversity Lies Opportunity

For people looking for inspiration and positives thoughts in this economy and new year, there is a great column in Forbes recently by Rich Karlgaard called "Pessiimism's Bull"

Essentially, he talks about how many great things and companies were started during the leaner times and people that get laid off sometimes go on to start bigger and better things.

Here is the last paragraph.

"Need some optimism? Here are ten great companies started in rotten times: General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ) (1892, one year prior to the panic of 1893); Disney (nyse: DIS- news - people ) (recession of 1923--24); Hewlett-Packard(nyse: HPQ - news - people ) (1939); Hyatt Corp. (1957--58 recession); Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) (1968, a year of assassinations and political upheaval); FedEx (nyse:FDX - news - people ) (founded in 1971 but launched in 1973, the same year as the Arab oil embargo); Microsoft (1975); Apple (1976); Genentech (1976); Wikipedia (2001)."

Karlgaard also has a blog if you are interested in other things he has to say.