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Comment by gustaf | Hacker News Reader

I work as a group partner at Y Combinator. Over the last 48 hours I've talked to numerous founders of YC companies who told me they can't make payroll to their employees next week. In many cases they had raised millions of dollars which is currently locked into their SvB accounts. Even if they get access to the insured $250k on Monday that won't last long and in many cases not even cover the payroll they are planning to run. YC wrote this petition with these founders in mind who in good faith trusted that their money would be safe in Silicon Valley Bank.

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The 250k isn't enough to hold them over for a week until the uninsured partial dividends get paid out?

I don't get how any of these companies are at risk of immediate failure. What I do see happening is these startups may lose some smallish percent of their account balance. These startups banked at a bank that actively lobbied for less regulation of risk and had over the FDIC insurance limit in their account so that seems entirely fair and reasonable.

To make matters worse, this petition is being put forward by a VC company that actively helped cause the crisis by encouraging a bank run.

However, instead of taking any of that responsibility, I see more fearmongering to get people on-board with socializing the losses.

Question from a foreigner: if this bank is so important for your ecosystem, why don’t y’all interested parties chip into some fund or something and buy it out yourself?

I am also wondering this. The capital definitely exists to do it. Perhaps it is even being asked for, but out of public view.

A benevolent take: yes, perhaps that’s happening.

A non-benevolent take: why would you do that with your own money if you can make it happen at the expense of somebody else?

What does the government have to do with that ?

How much liquid cash does YC have? - to float to these founders until they know the extent of losses they will have to incur as part of the FDIC process?

Edit: grammar

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