In fact, history shows us that crises typically usher in an increase in entrepreneurialism, as the thinkers, doers and makers among us find it hard to sit still—and as new necessities birth new inventions. Historian Alexander Field found that “the most technologically progressive decade” of the 20th century was the 1930s, during the Great Depression. In 2009, as U.S. GDP contracted by 2.8 percent year-over-year at the height of the Great Recession, Americans started 550,000 new businesses—the highest rate in 14 years.