Hi, I'm Erica Pandy and welcome to Axios Recap, where we dig into one big story. It's Friday, October 22nd, and we're focused on Lazarus Companies.

The pandemic hit thousands of firms across the country, especially those in the service sector.

Hertz filed for bankruptcy, Airbnb laid off a quarter of its employees, and Netflix's stock felled 77% in four months.

But there's something all of these companies have in common. They all came roaring back to life. WeWork is another

example. After years of mismanaged leadership and near death at the beginning of the pandemic,

the co-working company started trading on the stock market Thursday, and share prices are rising.

So how were these companies able to thrive after knocking on death store? In a moment,

Axios reporter Felix Salmon on the Lazarus companies of the pandemic era.

And we're joined now by Axios's chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon, who's been reporting on companies making a comeback. Hey Felix. Hi,

oh, wow. Companies making a comeback. Yes.

Hi, Erica. I was not expecting to talk about companies making a comeback, but I like this story.

I want to talk about this story because it's lots of fun. Okay, great. So on that note,

you're calling these companies Lazarus companies. Can you explain what a Lazarus moment means for these firms? It basically means any company that had a near-death experience and then

just roared back stronger than they probably would ever have been without it. And there are

lots of examples throughout history. In fact, pretty much every amazingly

successful company you can think of, think Netflix or Apple or you name it, has had one of those

experiences in its past. What I've been looking at right now is the way that there were so many

of those near-death experiences during the pandemic,

that there seemed to be a whole bunch of those companies like roaring back right now.

Yeah, I mean, that's interesting.

You wrote in your story that these companies, where it seemed like the pandemic was the death knell for them,

it sort of became their reason for success, right?

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