What Happened to the Silicon Valley Bank?

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Silicon Valley bank went from being the 16th largest bank in the United States to the second largest ever bank failure in the U.S. John Sutter: What actually happened to cause this bank to collapse? He says it was a combination of some bad bets that they made when interest rates were low and lack of sort of diversification of their business. "I think they didn't have really many positions hedging against this or sort of a sense of risk management"

Paris Marx is joined by Jacob Silverman to discuss the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, how it’s part of a larger crisis in the tech sector, and why it’s turning people against the industry’s venture capitalists.

Jacob Silverman is a journalist and the host of The Naked Emperor, a new CBC podcast. Follow Jacob on Twitter at @SilvermanJacob.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Jacob wrote about the lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in the Globe and Mail.
Paris wrote about how the SVB collapse should be a radicalizing moment against venture capitalists.
A video circulated about Jason Calacanis bragging about SVB offering him favorable banking services.
A screenshot shows a founder complaining about Chase closing his bank account because his company doesn’t have a physical office, saying SVB never required one.
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund told its portfolio companies to pull their money out of SVB before its collapse.
SVB’s President pushed for Congress to reduce regulations and oversight on banks like SVB as it grew.

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