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Prior to joining SVB, CEO Gentile was CFO for Lehman Brothers GIB - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35110431
He left Lehman Brothers 1 year before the 2008 collapse so I don't think you can connect anything here.
Regulatory capture, it's called. Man, it does a lot of damage. Long ago I and colleagues opened accounts at SVB for two different outfits with VC money. It was simply the thing to do when getting started converting that money into software that would then produce lots more money. It was simply the thing to do. We didn't have CFOs. We knew darn well our deposits would exceed the household-banking FDIC insurance limit.…
> If we lowly startup entrepreneurs can't trust institutions like banks reliably to provide their services, and we can't trust the government to do their part in maintaining that reliability, who can we trust? Oh great, another entrepreneur crying "Woe is me". Consider that your lowly regular employees have to make far more specific financial decisions every single year . - We have to choose health plan options that…
An investor / board member back then said "don't worry about it" when I brought up FDIC coverage limits upon their advice to dump the money at SVB.
At any rate last Sunday the FDIC knuckled under to pressure from the Sand Hill Road folks and extended their insurance to all deposits, not just the first quarter megabuck owed to each depositor. SVB's shareholders are wiped out, and maybe some non-depositor people they owe money to will take a haircut. But the various startups will be OK.