Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Urgent: Sign the petition now

ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 864 posts

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#291

Post by garry »

baq wrote: post #24

Pathetic to be honest. Yes it’s bad. Yes it’ll get worse if no buyer at 100 cents to the dollar is found by Monday morning. And yet, literally everyone involved signed up for it! It isn’t like there aren’t other banks? The thing had a circus for its risk management office. The big mighty all-knowing VC firms shouldn’t go around crying like babies and signing petitions but be organizing bridge loans until FDIC, the mo…

These are businesses that had a reasonable expectation for their deposits to be there, and we are not advocating for a bailout of SVB's management or equity holders.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#292

Post by baq »

skwirl wrote: post #123
slondr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you saying if I deposit more than $250k (which is NOT a lot for a business) into a reputable and regulated US bank at negligible rates of interest I should just accept the impact of the bank shutting down due to events unrelated to my actions and choices? Yes, because that is how risk works. > And that my deposit should vanish into thin air? No, you should insulate yourself from that risk, either by spreading o…

>No, you should insulate yourself from that risk, either by spreading out your cash between multiple institutions, or obtaining deposit insurance beyond the government's, or (most likely) both. Why would I do that when I can bank with a too-big-to-fail bank like JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America?

That’s the point?

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#293

Post by standapart »

garry wrote: post #144
axlee wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

110% agree. At some point, risk HAS to be treated as what it is, risk, rather than just "another way to do things". We have so many banks treating risk as what it is, and pricing for it, well these people decided to go to another bank to get funding, well deal with it. It's not like the average citizen has this luxury.

The equity holders and management of SVB are likely to be wiped. In the petition we specifically call this out: we are not asking for their risks to be "socialized." Depositors have a reasonable expectation that when they choose a bank (especially a publicly traded bank that is regulated) that their deposits are safe. If this is not true, then most people will only bank with the largest banks. That's not a good situa…

With all respect, Garry: YC is to blame for the consolidation of this risk in a single counterparty.

Those who led all these entities from the same industry to bank at the same place must be held accountable too.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#294

Post by hyperhopper »

Why was the title changed from "YC needs a bailout" to something that gives almost no information about the content.

"Urgent: Sign the petition now" is easily the most click-baity post-edit headline that I've ever seen on hacker news.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#295

Post by garry »

nightmarish wrote: post #105
baq wrote: post #24

Pathetic to be honest. Yes it’s bad. Yes it’ll get worse if no buyer at 100 cents to the dollar is found by Monday morning. And yet, literally everyone involved signed up for it! It isn’t like there aren’t other banks? The thing had a circus for its risk management office. The big mighty all-knowing VC firms shouldn’t go around crying like babies and signing petitions but be organizing bridge loans until FDIC, the mo…

[flagged]

I grew up food insecure.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#296

Post by sourcecodeplz »

choppaface wrote: post #142
sourcecodeplz wrote: post #31

Might seem like an ahole but can't you guys making 100k+ per year ride it out? We are talking about startup a here, have we forgotten the risks and implications that come with this model?

The bailout would most likely benefit the VCs and their funds. It’s not about helping employees who might be living paycheck to paycheck.

Regardless, there are people in this world living on 30 USD per month (or less). I don't care you chose to pay 8k rent per month. This is the wakeup call so many people needed.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#297

Post by dragontamer »

garry wrote: post #167
axlee wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing arbitrary about that choice. This bank promised better deals BECAUSE they were not careful enough about the risk it entailed. That was their competitive advantage, and they made bank for it. Well, tough luck, now it's not anymore: it has nothing to do with being a large bank or a small bank, it has to do with healthy business practices.

Many startups chose SVB because they were the ones willing to open a bank account for them at all. I remember going to a branch of Bank of America to open a bank account for Posterous and not being able to.

> Many startups chose SVB because they were the ones willing to open a bank account for them at all.

I mean, given the epic scale, herd-mentality of tech startup types to cause a $46 Billion bank run in a singular day (March 9th), can you blame them?

Its clear that other banks have seen systemic risk in focusing on this sector, and are pickier about choosing their customers.

-------

I get that this is a problem in any case. But the systemic risk / scale associated with the tech startup scene has just been proven to the world. "Other banks didn't want to take $100+ Billions in startup deposits" is beginning to look like the smarter move, given the circumstances.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#299

Post by smcl »

garry wrote: post #90
nocoiner wrote: post #8

LOL, nope. Not interested in taking another spin on the “privatize gain, socialize loss” merry-go-round. The banks had to be saved in 2008 because they were, like, the financial system. I don’t see why private companies and funds that are much less integral to the functioning of the economy as a whole should be saved by the public fisc. Sorry about your disruption.

These are depositors of a bank. Most startups only have one bank. Startups should live or die because they create good products and solve real problems in real markets, not because they made an arbitrary choice like which bank they started using. There's also a real risk of bank contagion if it is only safe to deposit in the largest banks.

Garry Tan there, making the case for a strong social safety net to shield people from the more ruthless side of capitalism, particularly when it’s as a result of events outside of their control. I’m a little surprised, but I am glad you have joined us.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#300

Post by somewhereoutth »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #82

Can I ask why everybody banked with SVB? Are Wells Fargo or Bank of America not hip enough? A bank should be like a gas station, you go to the nearest one given that the pruduct being sold is essentially all the same. I think that what happened is that founders weren't the one opening the accounts, the VC industry took it upon themselves to streamline the process in order to free the founders of the 'burden' of havin…

Apparently being a startup, with large chunks of money being deposited and unclear/non-existent operating revenue on a dubious business proposition raises lots of red flags for mainstream banks.
Post reply on HN