Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

h8 to Take a Haircut

love to Be Made Whole

itt a normal person interacts with a valley titan who understands how life would collapse without startups

seems like a good opportunity to realize a lot of regular people are resentful of that "wealth creation engine" because it was run primarily for the benefit of insanely elitist and arrogant people at the expense of the rest of the planet

— lauren (@NotABigJerk) March 11, 2023

oops mookie, i see you posted about the wealth creation engine yesterday

Ok I’m feeling better that the government isn’t going to bail these creeps out.

Way back my friends and I started a bank. It was moderately successful but ultimately acquired by BBVA and shuttered. I have a lot of regrets about that experience. I’ve been trying to convince that same group of friends to join a bid for SBV and nobody is interested. I feel like this is my mid-life crisis moment. I believe it’s an absolute steal at the rumored bids and could be a way to make banking better for everyone but I know JPM will acquire it for nothing and nothing will ever change.

Humblebrag

Maybe

My friends and I started Wachovia as a goof out of college.

Credit unions already exist and are fine, Simple was nice but nothing saddled with VC money will ever be good in the long run is the lesson of the past decade

Observe that the Three Good Websites (Lichess, Bandcamp, Letterboxd) are not VC unicorn moonshot money holes, Silicon Valley has produced nothing of enduring value since approximately ever

wikipedia is a pretty good website

lol otm

Wikipedia’s kinda annoying to me tbh

when i started on lichess ~5 years ago these numbers were usually 9 and 3k, people flock to a good site

122,147 players
51,662 games in play

i donate monthly its a good site

where the incumbent chess dot com tries to nickle and dime you to death

also the guy started it just as a programming project he wasnt even trying to get it popular but early on when it didnt even really work like you could make illegal moves some players found it and started making bug reports and it turned into a real thing

but...why would he do that if the overwhelming drive wasn't to make as much money as quickly as possible and then sell it to fund his next venture? what a total weirdo

Yeah that’s the thing right, all this VC money creating huge valuations on stupid capital-intensive plays trying to become an instant monopoly like Uber or Facebook when like making the first version of a website is relatively cheap if you make a nice version of something people obviously already want they will use it and eventually spend a lot of money because they like your nice website

All these things derided as “hobby businesses” by the valley mindset are gonna last forever bc they are obvious and cheap

its open source too i tried to contribute but i dont know scala or understand oop also the code isnt really documented lol, they do have a discord tho, i shd try again

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrCghUiWcAAYPPt?format=jpg&name=small

these guys

The learn to code VC genius types wiped out their own troubled but probably ultimately solid bank because they were all in a group chat together and panicked. https://t.co/QimOqdlrQT

— Evan Hill (@evanhill) March 12, 2023

PS. Companies I cofounded:https://t.co/XvZaberYhx (AI that handles your remote job search and recruitment)https://t.co/wUMOlRjizm (a new communication platform for remote teams)https://t.co/4yb9wyp406 (outsource the creation of creative assets at scale)

— Alexander Torrenegra (@torrenegra) March 12, 2023

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-deposits/

government backstop as plan b

Giannis Antetokounmpo with next level risk-management skills pic.twitter.com/JSHPVhGEDW

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) March 11, 2023

All these things derided as “hobby businesses” by the valley mindset are gonna last forever bc they are obvious and cheap

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Sunday, March 12, 2023 2:10 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Speaking of, did you all see pinboard self-cancel?

i’ve been busy all day today but nobody is going to lose their deposits. even the uninsured ones. theres more than enough assets at fair prices to cover the deposits. depending on how it plays out i could also see the unsecureds ending up money good

— 3.9% symmetrical objective proponent (@NewRiverInvest) March 11, 2023

Speaking of, did you all see pinboard self-cancel?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek)

no lmao what happened

Oh he posted some garbage about JK Rowling, whatever, he also got really mad about men wearing shorts once

It turns out a bookmarking site is completely useless to me and I never converted my account to recurring payment so I don’t really care what he’s canceled for

Most people are smart about some things and really stupid about other things, but it’s impossible to know which is which, which is why you should never post

Breaking: PNC is out. According to a source familiar, PNC sent an initial notice of interest to the FDIC to help with SVB. PNC held brief & preliminary discussions w/ FDIC. But after conducting initial due diligence, PNC informed FDIC yesterday that it decided not to move forward

— Sara Eisen (@SaraEisen) March 12, 2023

https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312b.htm

crisis over folks, time to go home

whats this are people thinking the bank run was done on purpose cause they didnt like svb

Syndicate Of Wealthy Industrialists Orchestrate Bank-Run To Depose Regional Powerbroker

this is a Julian Fellowes side-plot. A modern reboot of Vanity Fair (ok, kinda stretching it). Looking forward to this being in the next season of Gilded Age.

— 3.9% symmetrical objective proponent (@NewRiverInvest) March 11, 2023

That person has not read Vanity Fair.

well thiel did shout fire in a crowded theater xp

deliberately causing a bank run on the bank where all your companies have their money seems like a bad idea but obvs we dont know everything atm

i thought he started the run by pulling his money out?

in any case he absolutely seems like the kind of guy who's willing to take a loss if it completely fucks over someone he dislikes

it started with him encouraging his companies to pull their money out but theres no guarantee they all get it out its a pretty chaotic sitch to eff with

also if all he and a lot or basically all vcs require their companies to bank there they must like it, because of something like this i guess

trying to work out exactly what the moral hazard with SVB is, despite "just making depositors whole": VCs liked it because the bank trusted their valuations when making loans to them, in turn we get startups being told by VCs to use SVB, leading to massive uninsured deposits

— joolsd (@joolsd) March 13, 2023

Good summary for me.

https://blog.danieldavies.com/2023/03/it-what-it-is-it-is-understandable-that.html?m=1

hilarious that people insist, in any context, that bailouts won't "cost" taxpayers. Taxpayers are already paying for exactly this kind of government action and it has been great ROI for the country.

As I noted upthread, some of my clients were clients at SVB and yes, those clients absolutely came to SVB at the advice of investors. One of the main reasons is that SVB is very comfortable dealing with startups (most banks are not) and yes, relationships play a big part in that.

this guy is always a good read

https://stratechery.com/2023/the-death-of-silicon-valley-bank

Good summary for me.

https://blog.danieldavies.com/2023/03/it-what-it-is-it-is-understandable-that.html?m=1

― xyzzzz__, Monday, March 13, 2023 9:37 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Because the Fed and FDIC will always find a way to stabilise the system, populist yahoos and libertarians can rail against “bailouts” and pass legislation to “protect the taxpayers”, all on the understanding that it is purely playtime; that when things get serious, someone will find a way to bail them out.

This is no way to run a financial system, particularly since there is the constant risk that one day the anti-bailout loudmouths will accidentally succeed. The Fed needs to say, loud and clear, that “Yes, this is a bailout, and that is good. A bailout is often the best and cheapest way to prevent a catastrophe. The people benefiting from it may be quite comically unattractive and undeserving, but finance is not a morality play. Take your bailout and try to be less silly next time”.

you gotta kick the plebs while youre talking about these things so people will know youre serious

As I noted upthread, some of my clients were clients at SVB and yes, those clients absolutely came to SVB at the advice of investors. One of the main reasons is that SVB is very comfortable dealing with startups (most banks are not) and yes, relationships play a big part in that.

― Ira Einhorn (dandydonweiner), Monday, March 13, 2023 9:50 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the idea that entire huge industry was banking at one place because of relationships stretches credulity they had to have been doing actual things that the industry liked, havent heard anyone explain what that was yet, someone floated a theory that they accepted startups fanciful valuations without question which i guess would allow them to do what borrow money doesnt really make sense since these are venture funded companies they have tons of money its in the bank lol thats the problem, maybe it was as simple as they just made it very easy for the vcs to get whatever services they wanted since they were funneling so much money in there via their portfolio companies, i guess that could be described as relationships, could also be called a kickback if youre feeling crabby

I thought he was talking about the VC bros in that last graf

xpost

one through line im noting in these pro bailout explainers is theyre keeping the focus very tight on just the bailout of svb account holders which tbh is prob a good idea, but thats not all the gov did they also extended credit to other struggling banks so while svb failed and it was its account holders that god bailed out these other banks are getting saved altogether, of course the bigger picture is thee banks lobby the hell out of washington to get the rules loosened so that they can do shit that will one day require a bailout etc etc, which is the sort of immorality that gets people so fired up

I thought he was talking about the VC bros in that last graf

xpost

― Tracer Hand, Monday, March 13, 2023 10:16 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh yeah prob, my bad, tho tbf the next paragraph is a lil more generally dismissive