Apocalyptic nonsense aside (good ideas, good people, and good innovations will continue even if the current equity holders of a startup are wiped out), if the argument is "we need to make sure people can make their mortgage payments," then let's have the federal government send the affected workers checks for their mortgage payments. None of this indirect bailouts for careless VCs nonsense.
> If you banked at SVB, you should not be punished, you in good faith put $300,000 of your companies revenues into your account (IT SHOULD BE SAFE) and that will let you pay your employees and bills for the next few months, the bank fails, you should not fail.<p>$250,000 is safe. Ya'll are apparently intelligent people. You can read the most basic fine print.
It seems to me like SVB should be a fairly attractive acquisition target for a major bank. You get an immediate foothold in an enormous industry, and if you've got enough scale, the concentration among tech doesn't hurt you.<p>Seems like a Chase or even a major investment bank that wants relationships with those companies that may eventually IPO could take a short term financial hit and still easily come out on top in the medium-long term.
> I agree, let the bank fail and the bankers should go to jail.<p>Curious about why the bankers are getting such ire. Is there a good article describing where negligence kicked in to cause this? Because from what I can tell in my very limited understanding of this situation, they bought <i>very</i> safe bonds that just so happened to be exactly the wrong thing given what happened in the ensuing years.
Not sure I'm getting it. The big return on investment that VCs get is justified by the big risk, isn't it? So why shouldn't we as a society say, "you risked big, and this time you lost big"?
Silicon Valley lobbying to be Too Big To Fail. I predict they will get their way. What a complete joke. They'll be laughing all the way to the (solvent) bank.
Fortunately, the FDIC lacks the statutory authority to bail out SVB. Without congressional action it would really be an extraordinary move by the treasury.
Capitalism only works if companies can die. We (the public) cannot continue to let financial institutions pursue ever riskier investments, banking on the idea that the government will bail out the reckless.