4 ms·

Given the disaster and nearly unprecedented nature of these events I doubt anyone would bat an eye at a CEO taking the decisive action to do what needs to be do

Given the disaster and nearly unprecedented nature of these events I doubt anyone would bat an eye at a CEO taking the decisive action to do what needs to be done to survive (and fix it later). For many the past few days have been the startup equivalent of "fog of war". As others have noted it's not embezzlement/commingling and given the scenario "Wire out from SVB corp account to personal, document exact amount, and wire back to corp $NEWBANK a week/days later, document again" would hardly cause any heartburn now or down the road. Many would see it as responsible, proactive, and heroic. Depending on the amount the only issue would likely come from your personal bank - I know of people with ~$10m at SVB and I have to imagine all of sudden wiring those kinds of funds to a personal account with an average daily balance that's a fraction of that would raise some alarms on the personal account - or maybe not as I can imagine the big big banks (BoA, etc) probably saw a lot of this on Thursday...

ttsgeysygd 4y ago
FWIW, on Thursday it wasn’t clear to me I had so little time to get money out and part of me felt like contributing to a bank run, before it was clear there was a bank run, was not being a good citizen. Still not sure how I feel about it all. SVB staff were great over the 10+ years we banked there. Tech was always crap but I liked the people. Very sad all around.
- rdl 4y ago
  I totally agree re "contributing to a bank run" feeling shitty, but you have more obligation to your employees (especially), investors, and customers IMO than to your vendor (the bank). Congrats for being able to cover the payroll regardless, though. (I am pretty confident there will be at least 250k + 50% advance-dividend early this week, and still optimistic but far from certain that a buyer will take the whole thing and it will be 100%. Last time people actually took losses of 50% above the FDIC amount (100k at the time) was 2008 (IndyMac).)
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  That's where I was. My startup has about $25k in SVB - but we don't have payroll and I have personal access to that without impacting me if push came to shove (paying contractors, etc). I was aware of the situation and probably could have gotten the funds out but I knew we were well below the FDIC threshold and just didn't want to bother with it (frankly). I would have had more anxiety executing the wire and waiting for it to show up on the other side... Speaking personally I'm actually kind of curious to see what the FDIC process looks like - in the grand scheme of things it makes you part of a relatively small club! While I know people are suffering and the situation is a lot worse for many I'm actually looking forward to telling the story when appropriate. The general population is already fascinated by startups and I've had more than a few "civilian" friends reach out to me asking about the SVB situation. When I tell them we're kind of impacted but not really they just kind of chalk it up to another "Wow, startup life is so wild even THE BANK failed". Additionally I'd say the same - through various startups I've worked with SVB for over 15 years and the people have always been great (systems not so much).

ttsgeysygd 4y ago

FWIW, on Thursday it wasn’t clear to me I had so little time to get money out and part of me felt like contributing to a bank run, before it was clear there was a bank run, was not being a good citizen. Still not sure how I feel about it all. SVB staff were great over the 10+ years we banked there. Tech was always crap but I liked the people. Very sad all around.

rdl 4y ago
I totally agree re "contributing to a bank run" feeling shitty, but you have more obligation to your employees (especially), investors, and customers IMO than to your vendor (the bank). Congrats for being able to cover the payroll regardless, though. (I am pretty confident there will be at least 250k + 50% advance-dividend early this week, and still optimistic but far from certain that a buyer will take the whole thing and it will be 100%. Last time people actually took losses of 50% above the FDIC amount (100k at the time) was 2008 (IndyMac).)
kkielhofner 4y ago
That's where I was. My startup has about $25k in SVB - but we don't have payroll and I have personal access to that without impacting me if push came to shove (paying contractors, etc). I was aware of the situation and probably could have gotten the funds out but I knew we were well below the FDIC threshold and just didn't want to bother with it (frankly). I would have had more anxiety executing the wire and waiting for it to show up on the other side... Speaking personally I'm actually kind of curious to see what the FDIC process looks like - in the grand scheme of things it makes you part of a relatively small club! While I know people are suffering and the situation is a lot worse for many I'm actually looking forward to telling the story when appropriate. The general population is already fascinated by startups and I've had more than a few "civilian" friends reach out to me asking about the SVB situation. When I tell them we're kind of impacted but not really they just kind of chalk it up to another "Wow, startup life is so wild even THE BANK failed". Additionally I'd say the same - through various startups I've worked with SVB for over 15 years and the people have always been great (systems not so much).