> SVB is a 40 year old bank that's been doing business in the valley since the VC era started.
So it’s a fairly new bank, by the standard or banks, and the point remains, why did they choose to risk keeping money in excess of the $250K insurance backstop in one bank with no real track record?
Until this event the whole idea of the FDIC insurance fund was to ensure that people (not corporations) with relatively small nest eggs wouldn’t lose the whole thing and therefore starve if their bank made bad bets… once your nest egg grew beyond the backstop it was your right (and privilege) to assume the risk of losing it, if you wanted to.
Now because VCs and CEOs were essentially asleep at the wheels of companies that, for the part that have gotten this absurdly quick action from the government, consider $250K to be a rounding error, the rules have changed. That’s the special class… the kind of people who somehow think 40 years is a substantial track record for a business that’s big enough to underpin an economy.
> Until this event the whole idea of the FDIC insurance fund was to ensure that people (not corporations) with relatively small nest eggs wouldn’t lose the whole thing and therefore starve if their bank made bad bets.
Nope.
"The mission of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system."
