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Urgent: Sign the petition now

ycombinator.com

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Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#471

Post by nmalaguti »

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…

Why not let the market sort it out? Maybe these startups need to take a down round, or be acquired for a fraction of their value?

Maybe the VCs should step in and make bridge loans available if they want to keep their investments? If you believe in your portfolio, why not help them weather the storm? Or are you afraid to be exposed to additional risk? Should the taxpayers take on that risk instead?

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#472

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #345
garry wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? Just about any bank will open a basic small business checking and savings account. It won’t be fancy or high yield but they will bank for you. Are you really saying BofA would not take deposits for you?

[deleted]

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#473

Post by AlchemistCamp »

WalterSear wrote: post #235
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups have been anything but “socialized losses”. They’ve literally been the growth engine of the country for the past twenty years. According to Brookings, “Annually, venture investment makes up only 0.2% of GDP, but delivers an astonishing 21% of U.S. GDP in the form of VC-backed business revenues.” https://www.brookings.edu/research/as-the-venture-capital-ga...

YC's made $70 billion dollars from them. YC asking for assistance on their behalf is socializing the loses.

YC didn’t make SVB’s decisions or cause any of this and most SVB customers were not YC startups.

Your suggestion is equivalent to saying that if I were to support hundreds of kickstarters for various board games and resell them for a profit to collectors over the years and then kickstarter imploded after taking on extreme financial risks, then I should bail out all the new customers of kickstarter who paid and didn’t get their games. It makes no sense. The people running kickstarter should take the hit, not some random other party working in their ecosystem.

SVB owners should get wiped out, not the people or companies who opened bank accounts.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#474

Post by cmurf »

jimrandomh wrote: post #37

Statement by the FDIC: https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2023/pr23016.html Key paragraph: > "All insured depositors will have full access to their insured deposits no later than Monday morning, March 13, 2023. The FDIC will pay uninsured depositors an advance dividend within the next week. Uninsured depositors will receive a receivership certificate for the remaining amount of their uninsured funds. As the FDI…

What is the ycombinator petition asking for that this FDIC statement isn't covering?

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#476

Post by dahdum »

pdq wrote: post #368
dahdum wrote: post #43

Despite the attempt it’s going to be called a bailout by the public and press even if the FDIC turns a profit down the road.

How is the FDIC going to turn a profit? Every company who has deposits there are going to wire it out once reopens. You can't make money if you have no deposits.

I believe FDIC can sell SVB or equity to another bank once it stabilizes (with their help). With the current executive team gone and some adult supervision, it could return to being a valuable company.

SVB doesn’t have to die just because the shareholders get wiped out and management booted. It’s probably better for customers that it doesn’t.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#478

Post by AlchemistCamp »

IncRnd wrote: post #468
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much anyone on the internet can make an account here. Surely you don’t expect everyone to agree with what everyone else has said just because it’s on the same site!

In the same way, surely you don't expect taxpayers to agree with what SVB's account holders want, just because they are on this site!

FWIW, I am a taxpayer and am not a SVB bank account holder.

I don’t want to see this spin out of control on Monday when all those companies can’t make payroll and even more carnage ensues. This could blow up into a much much bigger panic contagion.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#479

Post by anigbrowl »

garry wrote: post #112
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Where was YC when SVB lobbied against stronger regulation so they could take more risk? Crickets. Edit: Sources in my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35114110

We are advocating better regulation to prevent this from happening in the future. It's in the petition.

You really have this non-answer thing down. If the business thing doesn't pan out you could certainly pivot to politics.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#480

Post by gigitrix »

mlyle wrote: post #379
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.

Though perhaps the feds should expedite, for businesses with only one bank account, getting them 15%-20% of their funds quickly. This is assuming that it appears very clear everyone is going to get more than 20 cents on the dollar. Many startups can survive taking the 30-40% haircut on their bank balances. Very few can survive their cash being locked up for many months (especially when there are many startups in the…

They have been pretty clear that they want to do this. And the balance sheet as liquidity skewed as it is is healthy, I would be extremely surprised if they get less than 95% back.

These "movements" are folks asking for normal processes to be suspended for the sake of that 5% or whatever and it's going to muddy the waters vs asking for the obvious "give us some liquidity now since you can immediately secure a huge chunk of it and businesses need it"

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