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Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

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181–190 of 200 posts

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#181
they never returned my calls as a self funded startup so fuck them

they are trying to raise money? that’s cute, maybe they can create a pitch deck and be ridiculed a million times just like all of us

“you need a team” “come back when you have revenue” “we need to see more revenue” “that market is too small” etc

but you know what? they got buddies and you don’t as a founder

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#182

I work at a bank most people are trying to park their funds at. It is a fucking PANIC mode disaster for them. Large companies in the Valley are trying to dump 100's of millions into our accounts

Can you explain, with a focus on how banks and money movements work, why this is a disaster? I'd assume this would be Christmas--Best day of the year, for a bank accepting migrating customers!

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#183
post #181

they never returned my calls as a self funded startup so fuck them they are trying to raise money? that’s cute, maybe they can create a pitch deck and be ridiculed a million times just like all of us “you need a team” “come back when you have revenue” “we need to see more revenue” “that market is too small” etc but you know what? they got buddies and you don’t as a founder

Well, "fuck them" is not "fuck the bank"-- the bank is just a ghostly outline of all the other people's money they contain. So really, you're saying "fuck you other people!" -- maybe that's not your intent! If so, think carefully before you reply next time! :) ;p xx ;p

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#184

Why hasn't SVB offered to split people's accounts into multiple accounts capped at $250K each? This would be a win for everyone, correct? The cash is guaranteed, companies don't need to waste their time migrating a new bank, and SVB doesn't have to worry about their fractional reserve.

That would be a "hack" akin to inventing money or creating endless liabilities for FDIC. That's obviously--to me--not how this is going to work! :) xx ;p

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#185

[flagged]

From the reference to the mistress I guess this is probably a joke. But it's in really bad taste, and callous to those who might be in actual distress.

Well...it's text, can you really tell if it's a joke when it's not someone you know? Seems the callous might just be instead to start hanging on this poor soul for doing something bad when maybe they're just expressing how they are right now. Extreme situations can make people extremely disinhibited and honest. Better to err on the side of caution and not give this poor soul more burden next time! :) ;p

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#186
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsecured creditors in Lehman Brothers were entities like other banks and hedge funds who either offered unsecured credit lines or bank loans -- they're inherently risky and have nothing to do with retail or consumer banking. Those entities ate the losses and none of their customers lost money. It's good and appropriate they saw haircuts after the depositors and secured creditors were repaid in full. Indymac is an in…

Unsecured creditors also includes anyone holding their stock, so if you held any shares of SIVB before today, you're sitting on a big fat goose egg.

Equity holders are a lower precedence still from the unsecured creditors but nobody wants to bail either of them out - they took a risk and it didn’t pay off. Their investment is worth zero. People and companies who had cash in checking accounts weren’t taking any imprudent risk.

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#188

I'm sorry... when did hackernews became SVB news? 90% of my feed since yesterday contains the word SVB from hackernews. Is this some kind of US thing? Can we just move on to other things?

HackerNews is a service by and for the venture capital company Ycombinator. 30% of Ycombinator backed startups use SVB bank, most of them to run their payroll.

So no we can't move on. The livelihoods of the people who this site was made by and for are at stake. They aren't even getting their paychecks this week. The entire venture capital and tech startup industries are immensely affected.

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#189
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a solvency issue because they are legally obligated to give people their money back when they ask for it. If none of the customers would withdraw money for the next 10 years they would be fine. But the customers are startups that have expenses like payroll and AWS. And the climate for raising money is bad, which means a lot of money is being withdrawn every month, and not much new money is getting deposited.

That is not what insolvent means though. There is a difference in not being able to pay back depositors bc you gambled it away on magic beans vs it’s tied up in safe bonds. In both situations you can’t satisfy depositors immediately, but they’re otherwise very different. For one thing, people buy companies that are insolvent, eg svb, they don’t buy magic bean farms, eg ftx.

The money is not tied up in bonds. Because those bonds are liquid and can be sold on the market in exchange for dollars. And when depositors ask for their money the bank is forced to sell those bonds at a big loss to get dollars. That results in assets < liabilities. Which is insolvency.

Re: Ask HN: How is the SVB situation affecting your startup?

#190
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they buy 10-year bonds when their depositors are startups, many of whom won't exist in 10 years? Seems like shorter-term T-bills would have been more appropriate, but I know next to nothing about finance.

Because the yield curve is usually upward sloping. Banks lend for long periods on the expectations that deposits that are withdrawn by some customers are balanced by new deposits from others. But of course in the current environment there aren't a ton of startups depositing recently-raised funds.

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