13 ms·

I have never seen such cognitive dissonance here at HN -- which I feel is really saying something! As an SVB customer who had to wire payroll on Tuesday, our pe

I have never seen such cognitive dissonance here at HN -- which I feel is really saying something! As an SVB customer who had to wire payroll on Tuesday, our perspective is naturally sharpened, but I found the lack of empathy here over the weekend galling. On the one hand, this is understandable, and Silicon Valley has done much to earn collective distrust. On the other hand, this is emphatically not all of us: many of us have been outspoken about our disagreements with the techbro culture, and have endeavored to create companies that are exemplars of what we want to see in the world. Speaking personally, I spent a lot of time DM'ing people privately who were saying absolutely outrageous things online, and almost uniformly hearing back: "No no, not you -- I love what you're doing." Well, if you want to see startups solving hard technical problems we need to have some real talk about how that has to be structured financially -- and maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines when our employees are anxious about their next paycheck?

roflyear 4y ago
Did you diversify your banking?
- jacquesm 4y ago
  That's answered I think.
- bcantrill 4y ago
  We were required by covenant to bank exclusively with SVB as part of the venture debt line we had with them. This is a condition that is (was!) very standard and non-negotiable. This is part of what I mean about the real talk: that venture debt line was clutch for us -- and I would wager than any hard tech company that you revere has used venture debt at one time or another.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Would you take $100k in free AWS credits if it came with a covenant that forced you to run only in us-east-1? That sounds exactly like what is happening here. If you really need the AWS credits, that's fine and good, but you can expect to take a reputation hit if running only in us-east-1 brings down your servers. I'm sure you got a really good deal on that venture debt, though. Probably much better than everyone else who offered you a line of credit, and for a good reason.
    - bcantrill 4y ago
      Well, first, we can't make payroll or pay vendors with AWS credits, so your analogy isn't terribly apt, but it misses the mark in a deeper way: this is more like taking that deal and then AWS deleting some fraction of your S3 objects. That is, unavailability would be in your AWS calculus, but data loss (rightfully) wouldn't be. (I can assure you that total SVB failure would have been viewed as less likely than S3 data loss as recently as a week ago.)
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        This scenario actually is more like unavailability. SVB has assets that cover your account at par value, but needs time to liquidate them at a decent price (or let them mature). The FDIC has that luxury. Your account would have been open (with most of your money available) on Wednesday without this action. This isn't a Lehman scenario. Those assets are marketable and worth something. They just can't be sold too quickly. This is why the TARP program made money: the sellers needed money now, but the government could hold those assets to sell at a good time. I'm sure you could otherwise call up your creditors and they would say, "that sucks, pay us by Friday," and life would be pretty much normal.
        bcantrill 4y ago
        That is the way that neither receivership nor payroll actually work. (And we needed to wire by Tuesday -- which is kind of the point?) Now, even in the scenario, we would have made payroll -- but it would have been because heroic investors wired out of personal funds, and I know that not every startup would have been as lucky.
  - h2odragon 4y ago
    I took a loan like that once; "sign here, don't worry about the blank spots". There was no other alternative if the job was to be done. When i saw the form again, the blank spots had been filled in with things like "24.99% APR" and other fun things that were not as had been advertised. I knew I was gonna get shaved, going into the deal, but this turned out to be right to the bone. I learned lessons from that experience. Hopefully y'all learn without incurring unsustainable costs. Good luck getting through this, its gotta be less than fun even if it all turns out right in the end.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    This is the problem though! And why people don't feel as much sympathy as you would like. Agreeing to those terms was not a risk-neutral thing. And now the feds have eliminated the downside of that risk, leaving only the upside. And I'm glad you were able to get a venture debt line and I'm glad your deposits are going to be whole, because I really like your business. But this kind of thing creates perverse incentives. Edit to add: In sensitivity to your point about insufficient empathy, I want to say that I have felt personally very worried for everyone waiting to hear about their paychecks, and about whether businesses I admire would be ruined by this mistake that was not their own. I (unsurprisingly as a commenter here) have a lot of attachments to people affected by this, and I've been very nervous about everybody. But I just also feel like we should be able to take a step back from our own personal feelings and look at this dispassionately and ask: Is this actually good, broadly?
- jijji 4y ago
  I've been told by numerous people, and ChatGPT apparently, that the way to minimize your risk at a bank is to only deposit a maximum of $250K into each bank, and use different banks with 250K at each bank, to ensure that FDIC will cover each person at each bank for that limit maximum of 250k.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
I Do have a lot of empathy for those impacted here, but I think people are also reasonably angry about having the costs foisted onto them. Some people struggle to entertain or express both concepts at once. It is like having sympathy for your friend that is mugged, but being angry that when the police came, they took money from your pocket to reimburse them.
tomato_123 4y ago
Empathy is completely irrelevant. You agreed to a particular financial contract, one that ended up being a mistake ex-post. Now you want to wind back the clock and pretend you agreed to a different contract, and leave other people on the hook for it. "Well, if you want to see startups solving hard technical problems we need to have some real talk about how that has to be structured financially" There are deep, functioning, financial markets. Private buyers were already making offers to buy uninsured deposits at a discount. The world wasn't going to implode. Equity holders and founders were going to take a haircut. That's fine, that's equity's job here. Don't try to get out of it when shit hits the fan.
- boc 4y ago
  Putting your series A check into a fucking bank isn’t a risky financial strategy. Speaking of private markets, they should have bid higher. Instead the government won and will likely come out ahead with their arrangement. No taxpayer money is being spent. Sounds like you’re just bitter about tech/biotech companies surviving?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacobriis 4y ago
    "Putting your series A check into a fucking bank isn’t a risky financial strategy." You still think that's true? Clearly it is a risk. And that risk can and should be managed. Even now! There is no law that says the FDIC has to pay uninsured depositors of the next failed bank. What if you banked with one of the last several failed banks that no one heard of or cared about? You think no companies split their funds among several banks and short-term US treasury instruments? Those companies didn't worry about closing this weekend.
  - Rury 4y ago
    No, storing everything in one account at one institution is a risky strategy. You're conflating what you want (something without risk), with something that fundamentally has risk anyways. You take a risk anytime you decide to do something with money, whether that's storing it under a mattress, giving you wallet to your kids, investing in a 401k, or putting money in a bank. There fundamentally is no such thing as a risk free investment when it comes to money. Even treasury bonds have risk to them, especially speaking in real terms.
temp_praneshp 4y ago
It's 0 % shocking to see the lack of empathy and schadenfreude, if you've been in H1B related discussion on this site over the years.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mavelikara 4y ago
  I came here to say this. If you feel shocked by the lack of empathy at "You knew all along that only $250K was insured, riiiggtt??", please consider empathy when you are about to type in " You knew that H-1B isn't an immigrant visa, right?".
  - ofchnofc 4y ago
    [dead]
jnmandal 4y ago
This is so aloof. People are engaging in a conversation about how to structure innovation. Many, many people don't want to see "startups solving hard technical problems." That's the nature of the guillotine images. They want a more equitable system and they want stricter vetting of what constitutes a problem worth working on. The fact that you can't see that in the discourse -- that you instead just take personal offense despite the need in your message to claim you are sort of outlier -- is emblematic of our community's lack of self awareness, constant need for praise, and general ego. Much of the criticism being leveled right now is deserved. While you can complain about civility, you shouldn't expect that critics sentiments would not exceed your own critiques when you stand to gain by the continuation of the system.
- rsync 4y ago
  "...they want stricter vetting of what constitutes a problem worth working on." How should we choose the approved projects and to whom should we assign them ? Where shall I pick up my work-book for the month ? Who will stamp it for me ?
  - jtr1 4y ago
    I know you’re not really engaging with the argument here, but IMO I'd like to see more early capital directed by agencies that are ultimately accountable to democratic bodies. Plenty of examples at DoE
    - jnmandal 4y ago
      The CIA has long had a "VC" arm; I think it's inevitable that there will be climate and energy investment funds (more like agencies) directed by DoE, DoT, and whatever Department gets created when the US finally decides to tackle climate change at large. So I think you'll certainly get your wish but it's a matter of when. Until then it will be a small amount of informal control through a sort of cronyist "you owe us now" type pressure.
  - jnmandal 4y ago
    Same place and people as always: the venture capital firms. Now their scope and focus will just be under harsh criticism and slight duress from the treasury dept for all the assurances they've been given. I wonder if we can still build mobile-app based dog food delivery services
nullc 4y ago
There are a lot of vicious and blood thirsty people on the internet. It isn't specific to you or this event. Hardly any big event goes by without calls for executions.
- koolba 4y ago
  Asking for equal treatment of the law as it is written is hardly a blood thirsty call for execution. It’s a call for fair treatment for all. Not special handouts to favored entities. The actions of the Fed plainly stated that the rules don’t matter. Take risks, fuck up, and no big deal. We’ll just magically save everybody.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nottathrowaway3 4y ago
    Fair or unfair doesn't matter; it's an allocation decision and the tech industry and its workers are strategically important to the U.S. That's always the axis on which these decisions will be made. > It’s a call for fair treatment for all. This will definitely be the rallying cry in the upcoming political shitstorm/reenactment of "The Merchant of Venice". But it's easy to make arguments about fairness and justice when your words don't become policy and your vote is 1/435. > ...so the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles...in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth. As Yellen and Powell insinuate, crippling a bunch of startups and making a bunch of pension funds etc. have zero returns -- all because of a monetary system failure -- is not a strategically good decision if they want stability and people to continue investing in tech.
    - nottathrowaway3 4y ago
      People who disagreed with this comment: I would love to understand why. Is this not the line of reasoning likely to be used by government officials in the bailout/no-bailout decision?
    - yunwal 4y ago
martythemaniak 4y ago
I respect your work, but you have to realize that what many companies were doing with their money was the financial equivalent of developing by SSHing into prod and editing a 50kloc index.php. And when they got into trouble, they did not stop to asses their situation (possible 5-10% haircut, nbd), but went into full blown existential meltdowns. One minute crying and begging, next minute threatening. In fact, after reading too many Twitter posts of founders complaining, they don't even seem remotely aware that they can even do things differently and properly. And let's not even get into the outrageous behavior of tech leaders like Sacks et all. This episode makes me embarrassed to be part of this industry.
- moshegramovsky 4y ago
  > This episode makes me embarrassed to be part of this industry. I'm feeling that more and more these days. I don't want to wake up one day and think "what have I done?".
  - cwsx 4y ago
    Disliking the industry does not mean you can't find a space where you're contributing to something you believe in. In my opinion, the industry has been downhill since FB blew up and started abusing its power, though I wasn't around for the dotcom/Microsoft era so that's just my experience. I absolutely loathe the vast majority of large tech companies, and that's only gotten worse (especially in the last 5 years). I outright refuse to work for companies (that I percieve) that are primarily involved in data collection/privacy violations, as I'm sure a lot of developers would refuse to work on weapons systems. That said, I'm growing more and more jaded, and wondering how best to focus my efforts. This has lead me to take jobs at smaller and smaller companies, heavily impacting my income, but at least I'm not actively working on projects I despise. I've also found myself spending a lot more time on personal or contributing to open source projects that push back on said projects I despise (largely privacy related). Not to say everyone is in a position to do that, but I do think we should be more conscious of what we're helping to build. Focus your efforts on projects you believe in, and be willing to push back on those you do not. This is not going to solve anything, but as the crowd grows larger we'll hopefully create enough noise for others to take note. (this is all very subjective, take my comment with a grain of salt)
phphphphp 4y ago
The reason employees are anxious about their next pay checks is because of the VC-induced panic which is entirely self-serving and has not one iota to do with making payroll — that’s just a palatable hand-wavey justification for demanding government intervention because their precious points are at risk. I have a great deal of empathy for the workers anxious about being paid, but that goes without saying, there’s nothing to discuss there. Workers are victims of the VCs who rightly deserve to be derided for their behaviour, both in this incident and more broadly in squeezing every last drop of profit from normal people. I don’t understand what you’re asking of people on HN. Are you asking us to preface all our comments with “…not all SVB customers are leeches…”?
- ofchnofc 4y ago
  [dead]
- m1nz1 4y ago
  I also think that people here are missing the game that was played by the VCs. I have a friend working at Insight who told me that they were preparing to issue loans and further funding to portfolio companies. This of course is less ideal than having the government bail their portfolio out, but they would have had no choice. So, having shot themselves in the foot by starting a panic, they decided that the best way to avoid getting in trouble was to push the panic even further to the point that it threatened the entire economic system. Personally, that is what I find so disgusting and that is the source of my animosity. I believe the fed ultimately chose to maximize the probability of avoiding a crisis over punishing these morons. I think that is wise but still not good. The analogy I choose is this. Imagine there is a forest that is due for a bit of a natural fire. We should let it burn - but wait it turns out some people built and sold houses in this forest. Instead of evacuating and having these people suffer and need to relocate, we put out the fire. Since we put out this fire, these people living in a hazardous way continue to do so. Eventually a massive fire will start and kill those people and spread to other areas that it otherwise would not have. All because we decided to stop the “maintenance” fire from clearing the brush.
markus_zhang 4y ago
I think the concern is: this time they covered every cent of deposits to prevent systemic risk from spreading. Now, what if, I, as a senior banker, start to abuse this policy. I'm not sure how senior bankers can abuse this policy but this is the concern here. So basically, if the FED can guarantee 100% of deposits, it encourages riskier moves. Worst case my equity gets wiped out, i.e. most of my unsold compensation vaporizes but that's it.
- drc500free 4y ago
  I personally don't think the thing holding banker-bros back from risky investment strategy is fear that their depositors won't get back 100% of their deposits.
  - yunwal 4y ago
    The depositors reward banker-bros for risky behavior when they bank with them. SVB paid an unusually high interest rate and part of the reason is because they were more aggressive about investing.
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  Well also you lose your job and presumably never work in banking again, no?
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    I'm not sure if I'd never work in banking again. It's a brotherhood, we take care of our...friends.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    Look up the SVB execs in 2 years' time and let us know how they're doing.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  that worst case sounds pretty worse? there's already inherent risks, why would anyone want that
nrmitchi 4y ago
I understand what you mean here. I don't think it's people having no empathy for employees (or even founders) who did not act in bad faith. We are (or were) in a situation where the entire ecosystem blew up because VCs and funds inadvertently incited a bank run. Backstopping capital so payroll can be made obvoiusly helps out employees, founders, and companies alot, but the ones that benefit the most financially on an absolute basis are these investors. It just feels a bit disingenous to hear an argument that "this small company out of the Midwest needs to make payroll" (which is an example I just made up, any relation to real companies are entire coincidental), while ignoring the argument that "If the government doesn't backstop this my $3B fund goes to $0". In summary I have a lot of sympathy for employees, and even founders who were held to terms that were completed standard and seemed reasonable at the time. I have less empathy for the group that are (were) vocally calling for bail-outs and trying to incite further panic in an effort to protect their own investments. Edit: switch the example to avoid inadvertently matching a real life example way too closely.
- jtr1 4y ago
  As an employee of an otherwise decent company who happened to bank with SVB, I was mainly resentful of being stuck in the same boat as the latter group
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    Ugh yeah, I honestly find it really demotivating that I share an industry with these people. Unbelievably, they have managed to be even more insufferably disgusting than the bankers during the GFC. I would have never believed it possible.
- FormerBandmate 4y ago
  Banking shouldn’t be an investment. The entire economy runs on the idea that banks are fundamentally secure. This is why banks are regulated, and why deposit insurance exists. The extension of it past $250,000 is very good
  - 4y ago
draw_down 4y ago
[dead]
Atsuii 4y ago
There has been so many great reply to this comment already about how the lack of empathy is directed at the financial system itself rather than the small businesses and individuals directly impacted. The other thing that make it hard for me to have sympathy for a government backed solution is what makes these small companies and individuals anymore worthy of being 'bailed out' than any other small business that finds themselves unable to operate because of situations outside of their control or factored risk. I don't see VC's and tech workers screaming for the government to step in when it's blue collar or service businesses failing. Thousands of small business with 5-20 people on payroll fail every year because of things outside of their direct control. I know small businesses that had to close doors because they got fucked over by things like landlords going bust and suppliers with half payments and no goods delivered collapsing. It's shitty for any small business to fail because of broader issues outside of their control, how is it fair to label this as anymore worthy of assistance?
- Aperocky 4y ago
  The subject is wrong though, SVB isn't getting bailed out, their depositors are. At the end of the day, SVB as a bank would be no more/the ownership would be washed. The depositor didn't do anything wrong, they had the full right to withdraw at anytime and they didn't make the decision to invest into long term illiquid low interest MBS in 2021.
  - scruple 4y ago
    > The depositor didn't do anything wrong They did if they deposited money above insured amounts.
    - thecus 4y ago
      There are plenty of necessary reasons for business to have money in accounts above $250k. There should be no exposure here, this is the US banking system - bank deposits should be guaranteed by the entire system (not the taxpayer). Let the shareholders burn, fine... but cmon man, what does anyone get by letting depositors lose capital when placed in US banks?
Eji1700 4y ago
> and maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines when our employees are anxious about their next paycheck? This is the unfortunate outcome of just mass producing us vs them rhetoric at EVERY level of discourse. Nuance is dead.
- yunwal 4y ago
  It’s also the unfortunate outcome of no one taking moderated concerns seriously.
nailer 4y ago
> many of us have been outspoken about our disagreements with the techbro culture This is an odd thing to read. I always thought you were one of the people that began SV techbro culture when you replied to David Miller’s technical critique of Solaris with “have you ever kissed a girl?”
- bcantrill 4y ago
  Yes, you have brought this up before.[0] And as I have said before[1] -- and will presumably say for the next 26 years as well -- I very much regret that quip. (The irony is that that was dredged up in part because people very strongly disagreed with my handling of the Noordhuis incident a decade ago.) But I will stand by my assertion that I have been outspoken about my disagreements with what I have found to be problematic in modern Silicon Valley, e.g. [2][3][4]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8958705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8958705 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041086 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9OjW7GB0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9OjW7GB0Q [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtvQZijPzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtvQZijPzg [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzdVSMRu16g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzdVSMRu16g
  - peppermint_gum 4y ago
    >Yes, you have brought this up before.[0] And as I have said before[1] -- and will presumably say for the next 26 years as well -- I very much regret that quip. Do you also regret this post? I'm genuinely curious. https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011310/https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011310/https://www.joyen... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845286
    - bcantrill 4y ago
      So if you follow the link that you're quoting there, you'll get your answer: That said, I do think that this is contrast to the Noordhuis incident. I know that this position is not popular here (and that I will be downvoted into oblivion), and that it's likely foolish to revisit this, but just to make clear my position: I am understanding (very understanding, given my own history) of gaffes made on the internet. The Noordhuis issue, however, was not a gaffe: it's not that he rejected the pull request (that's arguably a gaffe), it's that when he was overruled by Isaac some hours later, he unilaterally reverted Isaac's commit. (And, it must be said, sent a very nasty private note to make clear that this was no accident.) This transcended gaffe, and it became an issue of principle -- one that I feel strongly about. So what I wrote at the time was entirely honest, and it is something that I absolutely stand by -- more than ever, actually. I wrote that in 2015, and still feel that way in 2023 -- up to and including that I feel that way more than ever. (That is, I feel more strongly about this in 2023 than I did in 2015.) The world has changed quite a bit since 2015, and I daresay that the incident wouldn't repeat itself because I really doubt that Noordhuis would repeat his actions.
hartator 4y ago
> [svb.com] 4.50% APY on deposits Well, my accounts don't pay as much. Are you okay refunding the extra APY you get by having your bank takes more risks for the past years?
- makomk 4y ago
  I've seen this argument made a few times, and it's nonsense. SVB didn't fail because they paid out 4.5% APY on their money market accounts; that's pretty safe for them because they can easily earn that much from low-risk bonds and Treasuries and as I understand it that doesn't have the duration mismatch problems that affected their normal, boring, no-or-minimal-interest demand deposit accounts. (Also, I'm pretty sure people weren't earning that kind of interest for the past few years - the interest rate increases that made it possible are really recent.) It's related to the cause of their failure, but only in the sense that the fact interest rates increased so much that it was viable to offer that kind of money market account caused outflows from other accounts - it didn't particularly matter whether it was SVB or any other bank, or even potentially corporations just buying bonds directly.
  - hartator 4y ago
    > 4.5% APY on their money market accounts It's not on their money market accounts, but regular deposits. If they didn't pay that big of an interest, they won't have been in this position now. Maybe half as bad. But, depositors did profit for this.
    - makomk 4y ago
      The account I've seen people pointing to that paid that was definitely a money market account. Also, there's an interesting chart doing the rounds on Twitter showing that during the time period they dug themselves into this mess most of the deposits held there weren't being paid interest at all: https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1635431225945890816 https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1635431225945890816 Once again, the problem isn't that they were paying unreasonably high interest by taking risks and the customers were benefitting from this - this isn't Icesave in 2008 - it's that due to global interest rate rises people and businesses were no longer as willing to hold large amounts of money there at zero interest and they couldn't afford to pay market interest rates to everyone to keep deposits at the bank.
americafun 4y ago
I have no idea who you are. but i dont care: if you take risks you should have skin in the game. what empathy do you expect if you don't have any ?
- mulmen 4y ago
  Do you really want “put money in a bank account” to be a risky activity? What benefit do you see there for the economy?
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    Not even “put money in a bank account, but also “Am employed by a company that put money in a bank account”. You work for a company that needs more than $250k cash to make payroll? It's your fault for assuming that risk. /sarcasm obviously
    - macintux 4y ago
      Or even work for a company that uses a company for payroll that happens to flow through such a bank. It’s turtles all the way down.
  - americafun 4y ago
    yes omg... some banks are more dodgy than others. why didn't they keep their money at chase
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stametseater 4y ago
[dead]
s_dev 4y ago
>I have never seen such cognitive dissonance here at HN The cognitive dissonance is that most sv startups and SVB clients are run by people with very strong right wing economic beliefs. Suddenly when they're affected they're asking for bailouts of the parent institution so that they're not affected because of "too big to fail". This is quite simply capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich.
- Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
  Yes, this is exactly my issue. Libertarianism only lasts as long as it's not your $3bil at risk. Then it becomes "oh but the government can't let ME fail."
smcl 4y ago
> I have never seen such cognitive dissonance here at HN > ... > maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines You're seeing randos on Twitter tweeting shit and somehow twisting it to suggest that HN commenters are doing this? Lumping together these edgy tweets in with the HN comments, which are by and large pretty inoffensive and civil, is a bit of a reach. I am sure it is a bit of a stressful time to be an SVB customer and maybe it's a bit jarring to see people discussing its demise in such an open and matter-of-fact way. But I'm sorry, if you don't want to see people discussing the pros and cons of bailing out your bank, do not read the comments of a submission where your bank is being bailed out.
gardenhedge 4y ago
This is such a childish response. You're essentially saying to the community: "stop saying things I don't like!"
Convolutional 4y ago
> maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines when our employees are anxious about their next paycheck? I've been watching Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, Jason Calacanis and on and on rant for the past weeks/months/years about the homeless in San Francisco, how students don't deserve student loan relief etc. Now you're finding a lack of empathy galling? These prep school scions and maladroits, mostly wafting in angel/VC parasitism suddenly do an about face and beg for a government bailout. Of course they have been paying the piper and we hear before the weekend is over that their sweetheart deposits have been bailed out by the full faith and credit of the US taxpayer. The structure of all of this points one way, and the intentions of a handful that are "outspoken about disagreements with the techbro culture" has no effect on that. The reckoning did not come this week but it is coming, tweeted images and all.
phpisthebest 4y ago
>>many of us have been outspoken about our disagreements with the techbro culture, If this is what you have identified as the core issue people have with Silicon Valley, then you have really really missed the mark and do not understand at all what many people, particularly in the so-called "Fly out Country" have a problem with >>Well, if you want to see startups solving hard technical problems we need to have some real talk about how that has to be structured financially I want to see startups build sustainable business models built around solving complex problems. Not chasing quick adoption, with the goal to be bought out by a Google, Amazon, or Atlassian I want startups to be driven by something other than Quarterly results that the MBA's at the VC firm's demand

roflyear 4y ago

Did you diversify your banking?

jacquesm 4y ago
That's answered I think.
bcantrill 4y ago
We were required by covenant to bank exclusively with SVB as part of the venture debt line we had with them. This is a condition that is (was!) very standard and non-negotiable. This is part of what I mean about the real talk: that venture debt line was clutch for us -- and I would wager than any hard tech company that you revere has used venture debt at one time or another.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Would you take $100k in free AWS credits if it came with a covenant that forced you to run only in us-east-1? That sounds exactly like what is happening here. If you really need the AWS credits, that's fine and good, but you can expect to take a reputation hit if running only in us-east-1 brings down your servers. I'm sure you got a really good deal on that venture debt, though. Probably much better than everyone else who offered you a line of credit, and for a good reason.
  - bcantrill 4y ago
    Well, first, we can't make payroll or pay vendors with AWS credits, so your analogy isn't terribly apt, but it misses the mark in a deeper way: this is more like taking that deal and then AWS deleting some fraction of your S3 objects. That is, unavailability would be in your AWS calculus, but data loss (rightfully) wouldn't be. (I can assure you that total SVB failure would have been viewed as less likely than S3 data loss as recently as a week ago.)
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      This scenario actually is more like unavailability. SVB has assets that cover your account at par value, but needs time to liquidate them at a decent price (or let them mature). The FDIC has that luxury. Your account would have been open (with most of your money available) on Wednesday without this action. This isn't a Lehman scenario. Those assets are marketable and worth something. They just can't be sold too quickly. This is why the TARP program made money: the sellers needed money now, but the government could hold those assets to sell at a good time. I'm sure you could otherwise call up your creditors and they would say, "that sucks, pay us by Friday," and life would be pretty much normal.
      - bcantrill 4y ago
        That is the way that neither receivership nor payroll actually work. (And we needed to wire by Tuesday -- which is kind of the point?) Now, even in the scenario, we would have made payroll -- but it would have been because heroic investors wired out of personal funds, and I know that not every startup would have been as lucky.
- h2odragon 4y ago
  I took a loan like that once; "sign here, don't worry about the blank spots". There was no other alternative if the job was to be done. When i saw the form again, the blank spots had been filled in with things like "24.99% APR" and other fun things that were not as had been advertised. I knew I was gonna get shaved, going into the deal, but this turned out to be right to the bone. I learned lessons from that experience. Hopefully y'all learn without incurring unsustainable costs. Good luck getting through this, its gotta be less than fun even if it all turns out right in the end.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  This is the problem though! And why people don't feel as much sympathy as you would like. Agreeing to those terms was not a risk-neutral thing. And now the feds have eliminated the downside of that risk, leaving only the upside. And I'm glad you were able to get a venture debt line and I'm glad your deposits are going to be whole, because I really like your business. But this kind of thing creates perverse incentives. Edit to add: In sensitivity to your point about insufficient empathy, I want to say that I have felt personally very worried for everyone waiting to hear about their paychecks, and about whether businesses I admire would be ruined by this mistake that was not their own. I (unsurprisingly as a commenter here) have a lot of attachments to people affected by this, and I've been very nervous about everybody. But I just also feel like we should be able to take a step back from our own personal feelings and look at this dispassionately and ask: Is this actually good, broadly?
jijji 4y ago
I've been told by numerous people, and ChatGPT apparently, that the way to minimize your risk at a bank is to only deposit a maximum of $250K into each bank, and use different banks with 250K at each bank, to ensure that FDIC will cover each person at each bank for that limit maximum of 250k.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

I Do have a lot of empathy for those impacted here, but I think people are also reasonably angry about having the costs foisted onto them. Some people struggle to entertain or express both concepts at once. It is like having sympathy for your friend that is mugged, but being angry that when the police came, they took money from your pocket to reimburse them.

tomato_123 4y ago

Empathy is completely irrelevant. You agreed to a particular financial contract, one that ended up being a mistake ex-post. Now you want to wind back the clock and pretend you agreed to a different contract, and leave other people on the hook for it. "Well, if you want to see startups solving hard technical problems we need to have some real talk about how that has to be structured financially" There are deep, functioning, financial markets. Private buyers were already making offers to buy uninsured deposits at a discount. The world wasn't going to implode. Equity holders and founders were going to take a haircut. That's fine, that's equity's job here. Don't try to get out of it when shit hits the fan.

boc 4y ago
Putting your series A check into a fucking bank isn’t a risky financial strategy. Speaking of private markets, they should have bid higher. Instead the government won and will likely come out ahead with their arrangement. No taxpayer money is being spent. Sounds like you’re just bitter about tech/biotech companies surviving?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jacobriis 4y ago
  "Putting your series A check into a fucking bank isn’t a risky financial strategy." You still think that's true? Clearly it is a risk. And that risk can and should be managed. Even now! There is no law that says the FDIC has to pay uninsured depositors of the next failed bank. What if you banked with one of the last several failed banks that no one heard of or cared about? You think no companies split their funds among several banks and short-term US treasury instruments? Those companies didn't worry about closing this weekend.
- Rury 4y ago
  No, storing everything in one account at one institution is a risky strategy. You're conflating what you want (something without risk), with something that fundamentally has risk anyways. You take a risk anytime you decide to do something with money, whether that's storing it under a mattress, giving you wallet to your kids, investing in a 401k, or putting money in a bank. There fundamentally is no such thing as a risk free investment when it comes to money. Even treasury bonds have risk to them, especially speaking in real terms.

temp_praneshp 4y ago

It's 0 % shocking to see the lack of empathy and schadenfreude, if you've been in H1B related discussion on this site over the years.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mavelikara 4y ago
I came here to say this. If you feel shocked by the lack of empathy at "You knew all along that only $250K was insured, riiiggtt??", please consider empathy when you are about to type in " You knew that H-1B isn't an immigrant visa, right?".
- ofchnofc 4y ago
  [dead]

jnmandal 4y ago

This is so aloof. People are engaging in a conversation about how to structure innovation. Many, many people don't want to see "startups solving hard technical problems." That's the nature of the guillotine images. They want a more equitable system and they want stricter vetting of what constitutes a problem worth working on. The fact that you can't see that in the discourse -- that you instead just take personal offense despite the need in your message to claim you are sort of outlier -- is emblematic of our community's lack of self awareness, constant need for praise, and general ego. Much of the criticism being leveled right now is deserved. While you can complain about civility, you shouldn't expect that critics sentiments would not exceed your own critiques when you stand to gain by the continuation of the system.

rsync 4y ago
"...they want stricter vetting of what constitutes a problem worth working on." How should we choose the approved projects and to whom should we assign them ? Where shall I pick up my work-book for the month ? Who will stamp it for me ?
- jtr1 4y ago
  I know you’re not really engaging with the argument here, but IMO I'd like to see more early capital directed by agencies that are ultimately accountable to democratic bodies. Plenty of examples at DoE
  - jnmandal 4y ago
    The CIA has long had a "VC" arm; I think it's inevitable that there will be climate and energy investment funds (more like agencies) directed by DoE, DoT, and whatever Department gets created when the US finally decides to tackle climate change at large. So I think you'll certainly get your wish but it's a matter of when. Until then it will be a small amount of informal control through a sort of cronyist "you owe us now" type pressure.
- jnmandal 4y ago
  Same place and people as always: the venture capital firms. Now their scope and focus will just be under harsh criticism and slight duress from the treasury dept for all the assurances they've been given. I wonder if we can still build mobile-app based dog food delivery services

nullc 4y ago

There are a lot of vicious and blood thirsty people on the internet. It isn't specific to you or this event. Hardly any big event goes by without calls for executions.

koolba 4y ago
Asking for equal treatment of the law as it is written is hardly a blood thirsty call for execution. It’s a call for fair treatment for all. Not special handouts to favored entities. The actions of the Fed plainly stated that the rules don’t matter. Take risks, fuck up, and no big deal. We’ll just magically save everybody.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nottathrowaway3 4y ago
  Fair or unfair doesn't matter; it's an allocation decision and the tech industry and its workers are strategically important to the U.S. That's always the axis on which these decisions will be made. > It’s a call for fair treatment for all. This will definitely be the rallying cry in the upcoming political shitstorm/reenactment of "The Merchant of Venice". But it's easy to make arguments about fairness and justice when your words don't become policy and your vote is 1/435. > ...so the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles...in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth. As Yellen and Powell insinuate, crippling a bunch of startups and making a bunch of pension funds etc. have zero returns -- all because of a monetary system failure -- is not a strategically good decision if they want stability and people to continue investing in tech.
  - nottathrowaway3 4y ago
    People who disagreed with this comment: I would love to understand why. Is this not the line of reasoning likely to be used by government officials in the bailout/no-bailout decision?
  - yunwal 4y ago

martythemaniak 4y ago

I respect your work, but you have to realize that what many companies were doing with their money was the financial equivalent of developing by SSHing into prod and editing a 50kloc index.php. And when they got into trouble, they did not stop to asses their situation (possible 5-10% haircut, nbd), but went into full blown existential meltdowns. One minute crying and begging, next minute threatening. In fact, after reading too many Twitter posts of founders complaining, they don't even seem remotely aware that they can even do things differently and properly. And let's not even get into the outrageous behavior of tech leaders like Sacks et all. This episode makes me embarrassed to be part of this industry.

moshegramovsky 4y ago
> This episode makes me embarrassed to be part of this industry. I'm feeling that more and more these days. I don't want to wake up one day and think "what have I done?".
- cwsx 4y ago
  Disliking the industry does not mean you can't find a space where you're contributing to something you believe in. In my opinion, the industry has been downhill since FB blew up and started abusing its power, though I wasn't around for the dotcom/Microsoft era so that's just my experience. I absolutely loathe the vast majority of large tech companies, and that's only gotten worse (especially in the last 5 years). I outright refuse to work for companies (that I percieve) that are primarily involved in data collection/privacy violations, as I'm sure a lot of developers would refuse to work on weapons systems. That said, I'm growing more and more jaded, and wondering how best to focus my efforts. This has lead me to take jobs at smaller and smaller companies, heavily impacting my income, but at least I'm not actively working on projects I despise. I've also found myself spending a lot more time on personal or contributing to open source projects that push back on said projects I despise (largely privacy related). Not to say everyone is in a position to do that, but I do think we should be more conscious of what we're helping to build. Focus your efforts on projects you believe in, and be willing to push back on those you do not. This is not going to solve anything, but as the crowd grows larger we'll hopefully create enough noise for others to take note. (this is all very subjective, take my comment with a grain of salt)

phphphphp 4y ago

The reason employees are anxious about their next pay checks is because of the VC-induced panic which is entirely self-serving and has not one iota to do with making payroll — that’s just a palatable hand-wavey justification for demanding government intervention because their precious points are at risk. I have a great deal of empathy for the workers anxious about being paid, but that goes without saying, there’s nothing to discuss there. Workers are victims of the VCs who rightly deserve to be derided for their behaviour, both in this incident and more broadly in squeezing every last drop of profit from normal people. I don’t understand what you’re asking of people on HN. Are you asking us to preface all our comments with “…not all SVB customers are leeches…”?

ofchnofc 4y ago
[dead]
m1nz1 4y ago
I also think that people here are missing the game that was played by the VCs. I have a friend working at Insight who told me that they were preparing to issue loans and further funding to portfolio companies. This of course is less ideal than having the government bail their portfolio out, but they would have had no choice. So, having shot themselves in the foot by starting a panic, they decided that the best way to avoid getting in trouble was to push the panic even further to the point that it threatened the entire economic system. Personally, that is what I find so disgusting and that is the source of my animosity. I believe the fed ultimately chose to maximize the probability of avoiding a crisis over punishing these morons. I think that is wise but still not good. The analogy I choose is this. Imagine there is a forest that is due for a bit of a natural fire. We should let it burn - but wait it turns out some people built and sold houses in this forest. Instead of evacuating and having these people suffer and need to relocate, we put out the fire. Since we put out this fire, these people living in a hazardous way continue to do so. Eventually a massive fire will start and kill those people and spread to other areas that it otherwise would not have. All because we decided to stop the “maintenance” fire from clearing the brush.

markus_zhang 4y ago

I think the concern is: this time they covered every cent of deposits to prevent systemic risk from spreading. Now, what if, I, as a senior banker, start to abuse this policy. I'm not sure how senior bankers can abuse this policy but this is the concern here. So basically, if the FED can guarantee 100% of deposits, it encourages riskier moves. Worst case my equity gets wiped out, i.e. most of my unsold compensation vaporizes but that's it.

drc500free 4y ago
I personally don't think the thing holding banker-bros back from risky investment strategy is fear that their depositors won't get back 100% of their deposits.
- yunwal 4y ago
  The depositors reward banker-bros for risky behavior when they bank with them. SVB paid an unusually high interest rate and part of the reason is because they were more aggressive about investing.
IgorPartola 4y ago
Well also you lose your job and presumably never work in banking again, no?
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  I'm not sure if I'd never work in banking again. It's a brotherhood, we take care of our...friends.
- coldpie 4y ago
  Look up the SVB execs in 2 years' time and let us know how they're doing.
hackernewds 4y ago
that worst case sounds pretty worse? there's already inherent risks, why would anyone want that

nrmitchi 4y ago

I understand what you mean here. I don't think it's people having no empathy for employees (or even founders) who did not act in bad faith. We are (or were) in a situation where the entire ecosystem blew up because VCs and funds inadvertently incited a bank run. Backstopping capital so payroll can be made obvoiusly helps out employees, founders, and companies alot, but the ones that benefit the most financially on an absolute basis are these investors. It just feels a bit disingenous to hear an argument that "this small company out of the Midwest needs to make payroll" (which is an example I just made up, any relation to real companies are entire coincidental), while ignoring the argument that "If the government doesn't backstop this my $3B fund goes to $0". In summary I have a lot of sympathy for employees, and even founders who were held to terms that were completed standard and seemed reasonable at the time. I have less empathy for the group that are (were) vocally calling for bail-outs and trying to incite further panic in an effort to protect their own investments. Edit: switch the example to avoid inadvertently matching a real life example way too closely.

jtr1 4y ago
As an employee of an otherwise decent company who happened to bank with SVB, I was mainly resentful of being stuck in the same boat as the latter group
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Ugh yeah, I honestly find it really demotivating that I share an industry with these people. Unbelievably, they have managed to be even more insufferably disgusting than the bankers during the GFC. I would have never believed it possible.
FormerBandmate 4y ago
Banking shouldn’t be an investment. The entire economy runs on the idea that banks are fundamentally secure. This is why banks are regulated, and why deposit insurance exists. The extension of it past $250,000 is very good
- 4y ago

draw_down 4y ago

[dead]

Atsuii 4y ago

There has been so many great reply to this comment already about how the lack of empathy is directed at the financial system itself rather than the small businesses and individuals directly impacted. The other thing that make it hard for me to have sympathy for a government backed solution is what makes these small companies and individuals anymore worthy of being 'bailed out' than any other small business that finds themselves unable to operate because of situations outside of their control or factored risk. I don't see VC's and tech workers screaming for the government to step in when it's blue collar or service businesses failing. Thousands of small business with 5-20 people on payroll fail every year because of things outside of their direct control. I know small businesses that had to close doors because they got fucked over by things like landlords going bust and suppliers with half payments and no goods delivered collapsing. It's shitty for any small business to fail because of broader issues outside of their control, how is it fair to label this as anymore worthy of assistance?

Aperocky 4y ago
The subject is wrong though, SVB isn't getting bailed out, their depositors are. At the end of the day, SVB as a bank would be no more/the ownership would be washed. The depositor didn't do anything wrong, they had the full right to withdraw at anytime and they didn't make the decision to invest into long term illiquid low interest MBS in 2021.
- scruple 4y ago
  > The depositor didn't do anything wrong They did if they deposited money above insured amounts.
  - thecus 4y ago
    There are plenty of necessary reasons for business to have money in accounts above $250k. There should be no exposure here, this is the US banking system - bank deposits should be guaranteed by the entire system (not the taxpayer). Let the shareholders burn, fine... but cmon man, what does anyone get by letting depositors lose capital when placed in US banks?

Eji1700 4y ago

> and maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines when our employees are anxious about their next paycheck? This is the unfortunate outcome of just mass producing us vs them rhetoric at EVERY level of discourse. Nuance is dead.

yunwal 4y ago
It’s also the unfortunate outcome of no one taking moderated concerns seriously.

nailer 4y ago

> many of us have been outspoken about our disagreements with the techbro culture This is an odd thing to read. I always thought you were one of the people that began SV techbro culture when you replied to David Miller’s technical critique of Solaris with “have you ever kissed a girl?”

bcantrill 4y ago
Yes, you have brought this up before.[0] And as I have said before[1] -- and will presumably say for the next 26 years as well -- I very much regret that quip. (The irony is that that was dredged up in part because people very strongly disagreed with my handling of the Noordhuis incident a decade ago.) But I will stand by my assertion that I have been outspoken about my disagreements with what I have found to be problematic in modern Silicon Valley, e.g. [2][3][4]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8958705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8958705 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041086 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9OjW7GB0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9OjW7GB0Q [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtvQZijPzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtvQZijPzg [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzdVSMRu16g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzdVSMRu16g
- peppermint_gum 4y ago
  >Yes, you have brought this up before.[0] And as I have said before[1] -- and will presumably say for the next 26 years as well -- I very much regret that quip. Do you also regret this post? I'm genuinely curious. https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011310/https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011310/https://www.joyen... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6845286
  - bcantrill 4y ago
    So if you follow the link that you're quoting there, you'll get your answer: That said, I do think that this is contrast to the Noordhuis incident. I know that this position is not popular here (and that I will be downvoted into oblivion), and that it's likely foolish to revisit this, but just to make clear my position: I am understanding (very understanding, given my own history) of gaffes made on the internet. The Noordhuis issue, however, was not a gaffe: it's not that he rejected the pull request (that's arguably a gaffe), it's that when he was overruled by Isaac some hours later, he unilaterally reverted Isaac's commit. (And, it must be said, sent a very nasty private note to make clear that this was no accident.) This transcended gaffe, and it became an issue of principle -- one that I feel strongly about. So what I wrote at the time was entirely honest, and it is something that I absolutely stand by -- more than ever, actually. I wrote that in 2015, and still feel that way in 2023 -- up to and including that I feel that way more than ever. (That is, I feel more strongly about this in 2023 than I did in 2015.) The world has changed quite a bit since 2015, and I daresay that the incident wouldn't repeat itself because I really doubt that Noordhuis would repeat his actions.

hartator 4y ago

> [svb.com] 4.50% APY on deposits Well, my accounts don't pay as much. Are you okay refunding the extra APY you get by having your bank takes more risks for the past years?

makomk 4y ago
I've seen this argument made a few times, and it's nonsense. SVB didn't fail because they paid out 4.5% APY on their money market accounts; that's pretty safe for them because they can easily earn that much from low-risk bonds and Treasuries and as I understand it that doesn't have the duration mismatch problems that affected their normal, boring, no-or-minimal-interest demand deposit accounts. (Also, I'm pretty sure people weren't earning that kind of interest for the past few years - the interest rate increases that made it possible are really recent.) It's related to the cause of their failure, but only in the sense that the fact interest rates increased so much that it was viable to offer that kind of money market account caused outflows from other accounts - it didn't particularly matter whether it was SVB or any other bank, or even potentially corporations just buying bonds directly.
- hartator 4y ago
  > 4.5% APY on their money market accounts It's not on their money market accounts, but regular deposits. If they didn't pay that big of an interest, they won't have been in this position now. Maybe half as bad. But, depositors did profit for this.
  - makomk 4y ago
    The account I've seen people pointing to that paid that was definitely a money market account. Also, there's an interesting chart doing the rounds on Twitter showing that during the time period they dug themselves into this mess most of the deposits held there weren't being paid interest at all: https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1635431225945890816 https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1635431225945890816 Once again, the problem isn't that they were paying unreasonably high interest by taking risks and the customers were benefitting from this - this isn't Icesave in 2008 - it's that due to global interest rate rises people and businesses were no longer as willing to hold large amounts of money there at zero interest and they couldn't afford to pay market interest rates to everyone to keep deposits at the bank.

americafun 4y ago

I have no idea who you are. but i dont care: if you take risks you should have skin in the game. what empathy do you expect if you don't have any ?

mulmen 4y ago
Do you really want “put money in a bank account” to be a risky activity? What benefit do you see there for the economy?
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Not even “put money in a bank account, but also “Am employed by a company that put money in a bank account”. You work for a company that needs more than $250k cash to make payroll? It's your fault for assuming that risk. /sarcasm obviously
  - macintux 4y ago
    Or even work for a company that uses a company for payroll that happens to flow through such a bank. It’s turtles all the way down.
- americafun 4y ago
  yes omg... some banks are more dodgy than others. why didn't they keep their money at chase

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

stametseater 4y ago

[dead]

s_dev 4y ago

>I have never seen such cognitive dissonance here at HN The cognitive dissonance is that most sv startups and SVB clients are run by people with very strong right wing economic beliefs. Suddenly when they're affected they're asking for bailouts of the parent institution so that they're not affected because of "too big to fail". This is quite simply capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich.

Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
Yes, this is exactly my issue. Libertarianism only lasts as long as it's not your $3bil at risk. Then it becomes "oh but the government can't let ME fail."

smcl 4y ago

> I have never seen such cognitive dissonance here at HN > ... > maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines You're seeing randos on Twitter tweeting shit and somehow twisting it to suggest that HN commenters are doing this? Lumping together these edgy tweets in with the HN comments, which are by and large pretty inoffensive and civil, is a bit of a reach. I am sure it is a bit of a stressful time to be an SVB customer and maybe it's a bit jarring to see people discussing its demise in such an open and matter-of-fact way. But I'm sorry, if you don't want to see people discussing the pros and cons of bailing out your bank, do not read the comments of a submission where your bank is being bailed out.

gardenhedge 4y ago

This is such a childish response. You're essentially saying to the community: "stop saying things I don't like!"

Convolutional 4y ago

> maybe stop tweeting images of guillotines when our employees are anxious about their next paycheck? I've been watching Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, Jason Calacanis and on and on rant for the past weeks/months/years about the homeless in San Francisco, how students don't deserve student loan relief etc. Now you're finding a lack of empathy galling? These prep school scions and maladroits, mostly wafting in angel/VC parasitism suddenly do an about face and beg for a government bailout. Of course they have been paying the piper and we hear before the weekend is over that their sweetheart deposits have been bailed out by the full faith and credit of the US taxpayer. The structure of all of this points one way, and the intentions of a handful that are "outspoken about disagreements with the techbro culture" has no effect on that. The reckoning did not come this week but it is coming, tweeted images and all.

phpisthebest 4y ago

>>many of us have been outspoken about our disagreements with the techbro culture, If this is what you have identified as the core issue people have with Silicon Valley, then you have really really missed the mark and do not understand at all what many people, particularly in the so-called "Fly out Country" have a problem with >>Well, if you want to see startups solving hard technical problems we need to have some real talk about how that has to be structured financially I want to see startups build sustainable business models built around solving complex problems. Not chasing quick adoption, with the goal to be bought out by a Google, Amazon, or Atlassian I want startups to be driven by something other than Quarterly results that the MBA's at the VC firm's demand