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Urgent: Sign the petition now

ycombinator.com

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Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#551

Post by xupybd »

garry wrote: post #443
standapart wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't some sort of complex bid call option strategy. This is a checking account, and one choice out of many that founders make regularly. To my knowledge SVB was never required, and startups always had choice.

Yes but they got screwed by incompetence at their bank. Why should the tax payer get screwed instead?

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#552

Post by [deleted] »

popol12 wrote: post #537
Ekaros wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chose to exceed that and also not diversify at the same time. In my mind they have only themselves to blame. They could have gotten one or two more accounts if they are legitimate businesses.

What if you have 3 billions to deposit, like Circle ? Open 1200 accounts in 1200 different banks ?

[deleted]

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#553

Post by muzz »

axlee wrote: post #523
nuclearnice3 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's a lot of money (e.g. 30% loss on $200bn is about $600 per US resident household). This calculation really put it in perspective. CEO of HN asks that every family in America send his friends $500.

I don't even understand why he would even make that comment in good faith in the first place. They are not asking for risks to be socialized, but they are asking for their "deposits" to be safe and the depositors to be "whole". Well, sounds like a lot like socializing the losses, unless there is a magical way to make the depositors whole without burdening the taxpayer.

It absolutely IS burdening the taxpayer-- he just doesn't want to say it

"Regulatory backstop" sounds a lot better than "tax grandma to make sure out portfolio companies don't lose a penny of their deposits on this"

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#554

Post by falcolas »

gnicholas wrote: post #518

Why on earth would this be flagged? The SVB fiasco has been all over the front page for days, with an unprecedented number of stories allowed simultaneously. This particular link is especially relevant, since it's from YC itself. The strangest part is there's no 'vouch' button, which is typically/always available on flagged submissions.

I flagged the submission, as it was titled “Urgent: Sign This Petition Now”.

And fuck that, if I’m being blunt.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#555

Post by hackernews1134 »

gustaf wrote: post #257

I work as a group partner at Y Combinator. Over the last 48 hours I've talked to numerous founders of YC companies who told me they can't make payroll to their employees next week. In many cases they had raised millions of dollars which is currently locked into their SvB accounts. Even if they get access to the insured $250k on Monday that won't last long and in many cases not even cover the payroll they are planning…

How much liquid cash does YC have? - to float to these founders until they know the extent of losses they will have to incur as part of the FDIC process?

Edit: grammar

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#556

Post by throwwwaway69 »

mberning wrote: post #85
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.

100% agree. These titans of industry can surely help themselves.

The free markets will resolve this I'm sure

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#557

Post by analognoise »

cmurf wrote: post #448
cactusplant7374 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did YC encourage startups to put their eggs in one basket?

Or not encourage them to have multiple bank accounts so that deposits are fully FDIC insured? In effect, it encourages concentrating deposits in a single bank. Benefits the bank, does not benefit the depositor.

What's weird is that you can insure an account for more than that, it's just not free.

So if you had "substantially more" than that, you should be financially savvy enough to insure your accounts and pay for the insurance on them as a cost of doing business.

That's why we insure anything - in case something happens.

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#558

Post by snickerbockers »

_dain_ wrote: post #447
mberning wrote: post #193

This is just brazen. These people play all kinds of financial games, run business right at the margin of what is legal, decry regulation or legislation that “hurts their competitiveness” (abusing 1099 employees anybody?) and then cry out immediately for a bail out as soon as they feel an ounce of pain. Maybe these CEOs and VCs can fund payroll for a few pay periods. Edit: I fully expect the YC sycophants to flag this…

do you understand the difference between a depositor and an shareholder?

do you understand the difference between a taxpayer and a shareholder?

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#559

Post by throwwwaway69 »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #392
andrepd wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if it's 99% of GDP of that is going into the hands of venture capitalists?

Anyone who has really looked at the 2nd order effects. SV-style tech startups distribute more equity to employees than any other sector of business I know of and the average VC’s returns are worse than private equity, worse than the stock market and worse than real estate. You only hear about the biggest winners, but venture capitalists are taking on very long odds and the vast majority lose. More importantly, we all…

Been a while since I've seen the trickle down economics argument

Re: Urgent: Sign the petition now

#560

Post by hyperpape »

simonw wrote: post #525
hyperpape wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is debatable. Let P = group makes better decisions than individual Q = there’s no downside to everyone making the same decision P && Q => yay groupthink ~P && Q => could go either way P && ~Q => could go either way ~P && ~Q => groupthink is bad I think we have pretty good evidence of ~Q though, and P isn’t obvious. Was SVB better than throwing a dart at a picture of major banks? I can believe it, but I h…

I'm not saying SVB was better than a major bank (it looks like it wasn't). I'm saying that, had this situation not happened, defaulting to "what bank do other companies like us use?" would have been a perfectly reasonable strategy.

If you stipulate the risk of concentration away, I agree that groupthink is fine here, but I think you shouldn’t stipulate that away.

Also, I’d really say that founders probably weren’t the ideal people to be thinking about this risk, VCs were. If you advise a portfolio of companies, you’re better positioned to think about broad risks.

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