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Same. I don't really understand what he did wrong, and it seems as though everything worked out okay in the end. As as for "lessons learned," I really don't k

Same. I don't really understand what he did wrong, and it seems as though everything worked out okay in the end. As as for "lessons learned," I really don't know if there are any. Just an amusing story of Chase coming to grips with "startup banking" and the founder gaining some local notoriety.

op00to 4y ago
He didn’t do anything legally wrong. He didn’t consider the practical implications of deposit banking. For most of us our balances are low and things just work. Pulling $1M can be problematic if not planned in advance. Kinda what happened to SVB. They’d likely have been fine if they didn’t tell people they needed money.
hmahncke 4y ago
I wonder how Alex and Alex's boss would tell this story? [edited below - because threaded comments can come across wrong] I wonder if how Alex's boss would tell this story is - my employee landed a $35m account, then failed to manage the account successfully, and when $35m walked out the door, we never understood what we did wrong
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Yeah, but that’s a problem with Chase, not a problem with the guy telling this story. I don’t know about you, but it seemed fairly obvious to me that our protagonist didn’t see the bank as anything other than a convenient stash of money.
  - margalabargala 4y ago
    Yeah, for sure. If anyone made a real "mistake" here, it was Alex, who failed spectacularly at managing the account. If our protagonist saw a bank as a convenient stash of money, then that's all it was for him. If it were to be anything else, Alex would have been the person who would inform him of that, something he clearly massively failed to do. If I happened to start a startup and be given a $35M check, I would do exactly what the person in this story did, for the same reasons, and unless a bank person told me otherwise I wouldn't think anything more of it. A bank is a bank is a bank until they demonstrate otherwise to their customer, not the other way around.
swatcoder 4y ago
> I don't really understand what he did wrong He was just clueless to how banking worked at the time and how bankers expected to be involved with helping new clients gradually grow their banking relationship. He was a young kid who intuitively engaged in anonymous, electronic, modern banking before bank branches were really there themselves. To young people who came up after him, his intuitive way became more the norm — especially for VC startups — and the idea that you might buy your banker a bottle of nice whiskey for the holidays makes no sense. But for Alex, the banker, who had a kid come in and grow an account to $35M and then silently drain it without ever consulting with him, the whole experience was alien and absolutely bewildering. You can think of it as a culture clash or maybe a missed opportunity. More awkward than wrong.
- pjdesno 4y ago
  By 2012, the banking industry had spent two or three decades educating customers to teach them that banking is an impersonal transaction which takes place via ATM machines and the internet, and never, ever, ever involves talking to a bank teller behind a counter. They've been trying to de-personalize banking since back when I got my first ATM card in 1983 or so.
  - jldugger 4y ago
    Yea, the story isn't how banking online is anonymous and magic, its about how branch banking is extremely regional, and how few of them deal with "pre money" startup financing, and were _structurally_ unprepared to handle it. "I have 35M but need to slowly spend it down until the next funding round" is not what most businesses in LA look like, and the cash infusion presumably allowed the bank to expand lending in the area, and business banking. And when those funds leave, well, there might even have been layoffs.
  - eropple 4y ago
    > They've been trying to de-personalize banking since back when I got my first ATM card in 1983 or so. For personal banking, absolutely. But the property management business I bought, and then sold, had dedicated account managers at both banks we used, and both they (and the previous owner of my company) had an expectation of personal contact and fairly regular conversations--both because our customers also used those banks, but also just because it's the norm. This was in 2020, for reference. Business banking isn't all startups.

op00to 4y ago

He didn’t do anything legally wrong. He didn’t consider the practical implications of deposit banking. For most of us our balances are low and things just work. Pulling $1M can be problematic if not planned in advance. Kinda what happened to SVB. They’d likely have been fine if they didn’t tell people they needed money.

hmahncke 4y ago

I wonder how Alex and Alex's boss would tell this story? [edited below - because threaded comments can come across wrong] I wonder if how Alex's boss would tell this story is - my employee landed a $35m account, then failed to manage the account successfully, and when $35m walked out the door, we never understood what we did wrong

Aeolun 4y ago
Yeah, but that’s a problem with Chase, not a problem with the guy telling this story. I don’t know about you, but it seemed fairly obvious to me that our protagonist didn’t see the bank as anything other than a convenient stash of money.
- margalabargala 4y ago
  Yeah, for sure. If anyone made a real "mistake" here, it was Alex, who failed spectacularly at managing the account. If our protagonist saw a bank as a convenient stash of money, then that's all it was for him. If it were to be anything else, Alex would have been the person who would inform him of that, something he clearly massively failed to do. If I happened to start a startup and be given a $35M check, I would do exactly what the person in this story did, for the same reasons, and unless a bank person told me otherwise I wouldn't think anything more of it. A bank is a bank is a bank until they demonstrate otherwise to their customer, not the other way around.

swatcoder 4y ago

> I don't really understand what he did wrong He was just clueless to how banking worked at the time and how bankers expected to be involved with helping new clients gradually grow their banking relationship. He was a young kid who intuitively engaged in anonymous, electronic, modern banking before bank branches were really there themselves. To young people who came up after him, his intuitive way became more the norm — especially for VC startups — and the idea that you might buy your banker a bottle of nice whiskey for the holidays makes no sense. But for Alex, the banker, who had a kid come in and grow an account to $35M and then silently drain it without ever consulting with him, the whole experience was alien and absolutely bewildering. You can think of it as a culture clash or maybe a missed opportunity. More awkward than wrong.

pjdesno 4y ago
By 2012, the banking industry had spent two or three decades educating customers to teach them that banking is an impersonal transaction which takes place via ATM machines and the internet, and never, ever, ever involves talking to a bank teller behind a counter. They've been trying to de-personalize banking since back when I got my first ATM card in 1983 or so.
- jldugger 4y ago
  Yea, the story isn't how banking online is anonymous and magic, its about how branch banking is extremely regional, and how few of them deal with "pre money" startup financing, and were _structurally_ unprepared to handle it. "I have 35M but need to slowly spend it down until the next funding round" is not what most businesses in LA look like, and the cash infusion presumably allowed the bank to expand lending in the area, and business banking. And when those funds leave, well, there might even have been layoffs.
- eropple 4y ago
  > They've been trying to de-personalize banking since back when I got my first ATM card in 1983 or so. For personal banking, absolutely. But the property management business I bought, and then sold, had dedicated account managers at both banks we used, and both they (and the previous owner of my company) had an expectation of personal contact and fairly regular conversations--both because our customers also used those banks, but also just because it's the norm. This was in 2020, for reference. Business banking isn't all startups.