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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

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Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#81

Post by brunooo »

paxys wrote: post #64
brunooo wrote: post #4

One of those rare opportunities to clearly assess VCs from the outside, and surprisingly good steady reaction by him and Khosla. Who else?

Is there the opposite list? VCs like Ackman, Sacks, Calcanis, Cuban all firmly belong on it. Nothing from them but blame directed at others (biden, yellen, zelinsky, the fed, fdic, regulations – everyone but themselves), dangerous misinformation (including fake photos and videos of bank runs), and demands for an immediate government bailout. I wish someone would compile a video of how quickly these "rugged libertaria…

There … is?

Right below that there’s another bracket of “trying to tweet through it”, a lot of the folks behind the We Support An SVB Successor thing, which then, as Paul Graham did, lectured people that they can’t really do anything because their LP agreements forbid it.

Didn’t know YC was a non-profit and Paul’s involvement was a $85k salary and no carry/returns…

Push came to shove, some people stepped or are stepping up, some didn’t.

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#82

Post by [deleted] »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #53
Waterluvian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it generally a cardinal sin of business finance though?

It's an "antipattern" (and usually a strong sign that something is badly wrong) but it's not illegal... "sinful" is a useful hint that something is "norm" related.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#83

Post by baq »

grey-area wrote: post #58
phphphphp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s not fair to compare Garry Tan to sama in this situation because Garry is the current president and sama is the former, but, it’s nice to see sama’s measured response compared to Garry’s. Garry is shouting from the rooftops that more than a million jobs are going to be lost if the fed doesn’t immediately do something (that we all know it isn’t going to do). I wouldn’t want to be a YC startup right now, list…

The fdic and fed probably will do exactly what Gary Tan and many others recommended - no bailout of the company or shareholders but organise a facility so that the depositors get 100%. They’re trying to sell it first but if that doesn’t work they don’t really have other options if they don’t want to be dealing with massive job losses and multiple bank runs next week.

Getting 90 cents on the dollar is not 'massive job losses' and most people outside of tech (SV VC tech precisely) think that the bank run risk is massively overblown.

Anyway we'll see what FDIC does. They're good at what they do.

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#84

Post by forgottenlogin9 »

choppaface wrote: post #72
icelancer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage payment delays in the state of California are severely punishable under law: https://www.ottingerlaw.com/blog/wages-hours/employer-not-pa...

Except Musk has established precedent at Twitter that you can just fire employees for cause.

1) California employment is at-will, employees can always be fired.

2) What on earth does this have to do with running payroll late?

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#86

Post by dragonwriter »

nostrebored wrote: post #23
breck wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 2 week payroll is more than $250,000 and you are bootstrapped? I call B.S. Something doesn't add up. Coming from an anon account no less.

FDIC insured funds haven’t been disbursed yet right?

> FDIC insured funds haven’t been disbursed yet right?

The bank was closed on Friday, and at the time an announcement was made that the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara would open with all insured deposits on Monday (this will not happen if between now and Monday a buyer is found and that bank instead takes over operations on Monday.) There’s not really a “disbursement” of insured funds, just a transfer to a new bank, which may or may not be run by the Federal government.

For uninsured funds, the announced plan (which also might be cancelled if a bank takeover provides better terms for them) is to provide an initial dividend during the week, and a “receivership certificate” for any remaining uninsured balances. Most likely (given history) a bank takeover would also preserve uninsured balances as normal deposits at the new bank; but that’s not guaranteed.

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#87

Post by powera »

breck wrote: post #17
gfsdgsfgfds wrote: post #12

Just one anecdote of many. I'm a founder of a bootstrapped startup. We are/were with SVB. On Thursday I tried to get a Brex cash account setup to move some operational cash there but it didn't happen in time. I thought of wiring money out of SVB to my personal account but decided it felt too dodgy. Payroll for 2 weeks ending March 15th had to be funded through Gusto by tomorrow (March 13th). So I did all I could do w…

Your 2 week payroll is more than $250,000 and you are bootstrapped? I call B.S. Something doesn't add up. Coming from an anon account no less.

Hacker News is full of people who believe anything they read on this site if it fits the narrative, even if it is from a throw-away account that clearly doesn't understand the banking system.

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#88

Post by inconceivable »

jll29 wrote: post #75
inconceivable wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after being here for over 10 years (not on this account), i've observed that hn is basically split into two groups: people with money, and people who don't have much of it. the people with less money are much more vocal about it, for obvious reasons.

What you state is perhaps obvious, I would not even bother to open a new account to conceal my identity just to say that... It is a bimodal distribution of (1) the lucky ones and (2) the ones either "not yet lucky" ones (1/10) or the "never lucky"ones (9/10). I find it refreshing to hear stories about how things did _not_ work out (from the sources). It is much harder to get the real stories behind the successes beca…

if you believe in good luck, do you believe in bad luck? you frame it as "not lucky" instead of "bad luck".

in other words, if you ascribe success to nothing in particular other than luck, why do you put more stock in the negative case? couldn't failure be caused by nothing other than bad luck?

reading failure stories to look for what to avoid might not be the right strategy if you believe in a world where luck dominates.

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#89

Post by ttsgeysygd »

kkielhofner wrote: post #80
rdl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but I would be pretty comfortable with SVB -> personal account if you documented why and communicated about it in advance with board/counsel. (Obviously the next step would be opening a Chase/etc. account and sending the funds on to that, not using your personal account for company business on an ongoing basis, but a limited number of emergency transactions should be fine.)

Given the disaster and nearly unprecedented nature of these events I doubt anyone would bat an eye at a CEO taking the decisive action to do what needs to be done to survive (and fix it later). For many the past few days have been the startup equivalent of "fog of war". As others have noted it's not embezzlement/commingling and given the scenario "Wire out from SVB corp account to personal, document exact amount, and…

FWIW, on Thursday it wasn’t clear to me I had so little time to get money out and part of me felt like contributing to a bank run, before it was clear there was a bank run, was not being a good citizen. Still not sure how I feel about it all. SVB staff were great over the 10+ years we banked there. Tech was always crap but I liked the people. Very sad all around.

Re: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent startup six-figure loan after SVB collapse

#90

Post by rdl »

forgottenlogin9 wrote: post #84
choppaface wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Musk has established precedent at Twitter that you can just fire employees for cause.

1) California employment is at-will, employees can always be fired. 2) What on earth does this have to do with running payroll late?

On 1), you actually have even higher obligations to pay IMMEDIATELY if you fire someone, including for all other money owed (accumulated vacation/sick days, etc.)
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