Silicon Valley Bank had 80 billion dollars in assets, which includes funds from Venture Capital (VC) firms. If you have a billion dollars in assets (or a few 10

Silicon Valley Bank had 80 billion dollars in assets, which includes funds from Venture Capital (VC) firms. If you have a billion dollars in assets (or a few 100 million) then you would hire lawyers, tax attorneys, and financial analysts to make sure that where you put your money is safe. Given that the FDIC will only insure up to $250,000, then those account holders that have much more than that are considered people who "should know" the risk profile of the bank they're investing in (as compared to a mom and pop savings account). These FDIC limits were put in during the 1930s and never raised with inflation (which isn't ideal). In any case, if you have a large amount of money you're investing in a bank as opposed to the stock market then you should be primarily concerned that the bank will have a stable return that's slightly higher than inflation with a low risk profile (ie remain solvent). That means that you need to make sure that the loan book (that is, the loans that the bank is giving out) are non-risky, the treasuries that the bank has on hand won't devalue the banks asset base if the Federal Reserve decides to raise rates (another problem that SVB had), in addition to the risk profile of any other assets on hand and how much each individual asset class affects the solvency of the bank. In short, the more money that you are investing in a bank (or any other financial vehicle) the more investigation you should be making into that bank. In simplistic terms, if you're spending a couple dollars on a candy bar you don't examine the purchase with as much attention as compared to if you were buying a car or a house. And if you suddenly have come into large amounts of money and need to make complex financial decisions I would talk to a licensed financial professional. These guys are the financial professionals and they didn't do their homework.