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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Where was YC when SVB lobbied against stronger regulation so they could take more risk? Crickets.

Edit: Sources in my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35114110

Source for SVB lobbying against banking regulations?

“In 2015, SVB President Greg Becker submitted a statement [0] to a Senate panel pushing legislators to exempt more banks – including his own – from new regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.”

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-114shrg94375/pdf/CH...

Oof, this is real shot/chaser stuff. For anyone interested, the relevant statement starts on page 115 of the linked document. It’s quite short and worth reading. Some real Big Short vibes here.

Completely unrelated to anything, but why was this document scanned by a potato? They do not keep the original electronic version?

Thanks!

Silicon Valley Bank chief pressed Congress to weaken risk regulations

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11847295/amp/CEO-co...

I googled that for you.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/11/silicon-val...

Thanks!

We are advocating better regulation to prevent this from happening in the future. It's in the petition.

Thanks for the reply Garry. I’m a random nobody here, but I just don’t understand how so much of YC had exposure to this institution and no one was checking in on this. It’s a systemic failure.

Demo days are great and pump the pipeline. Who’s doing your third party and vendor risk management across the portfolio? Who is doing and monitoring public policy? Rhetorical, not meant to salt the wound, I genuinely want YC to learn from this and do better.

Well, now you are. But the milk's been spilt.

> We are advocating better regulation to prevent this from happening in the future. It's in the petition.

Details matter — let's wait to see what y'all actually advocate when it comes down to writing actual regulations.

You really have this non-answer thing down. If the business thing doesn't pan out you could certainly pivot to politics.

Agreed, and it's kinda crazy that someone as respected as him is choosing to die on this hill.

Per Wikipedia, he's the President of YC, he's essentially a politician (without the ostensible duty to the public)

"in the future"... I think that sums it up pretty well.

What am I supposed to believe, your words or your actions?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com