By late Thursday, it was clear that important players in Silicon Valley and the tech and VC world were breaking ranks.
The bank run at Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t just a financial scare for entrepreneur Punit Singh Soni. For the CEO and founder of the Redwood City AI startup, last weekend’s bank run also revealed Silicon Valley leaders he could count on —and those he could not.
The federal government eventually came to the rescue with a late weekend intervention. But the 48 hours of uncertainty exposed serious fissures in a close-knit technology ecosystem that has thrived for 40 years —with Silicon Valley Bank playing a critical role. “My first reaction was, ‘Well, this is a new random problem,’” he said. “The second reaction was, ‘Well, this is crazy.’” When he logged on to Twitter he said he found “amazing people sending all cap messages everywhere,” he quipped. The messages came from “a bunch of VCs who said take your money out. It’s going to be run on. Blah, blah, blah.
Dubugras, whose company is considered a Silicon Valley rival, said his team also moved funds out of SVB during the run. He said it was a logical move for startups. “The math is, ‘Hey, there’s a 1% chance that this becomes a problem, why wouldn’t I take my money out?’” “They’re really, really nice people, super nice, super easy to work with,” he told The Examiner. “They developed a no-asshole type of culture and it really comes through when you work with them. And I honestly feel bad. The people that I’ve always interacted with there are just amazing human beings outside of them being super smart and talented.”
“And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Your money may be stuck in SVB but if I as an entrepreneur can look into my bank account and pull up money to fund my own company, I’m sure you, who’s worked in venture capital for decades, probably has some money somewhere you can use.”The good news was there were VCs willing to help. “For all the people who did all the drama or made noises on Twitter, there were good, strong, high-quality investors who stepped up.
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