SVB paid out bonuses on March 10
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I wouldn’t say this is making me more sympathetic to a bailout:
Silicon Valley Bank on Friday paid out annual bonuses to eligible U.S. employees, just hours before the bank was seized by the U.S. government, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
What to know: The bonuses were for work done during 2022, and were previously scheduled to be disbursed on March 10. That date ultimately coincided with the bank’s takeover by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
The anti-regulation CEO managed to cash some stock on the way down too.
Meanwhile, you will definitely guess who played a major role in the bank run:
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund had no money with Silicon Valley Bank as of Thursday morning as the bank descended into chaos, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Founders Fund withdrew millions from SVB, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It joined other venture funds that took dramatic steps to limit exposure to the now-failed financial institution. Founders Fund also advised its portfolio companies that there was no downside to moving their money away from SVB, even if the risk was low.
Founders Fund acted in other ways to move its business away from SVB. On Thursday, as the bank was beginning to unravel, the firm started what’s known as a capital call. That’s a run-of-the-mill activity in the venture capital world, in which a VC firm asks its investors, or limited partners, to send it money in order to make investments in startups — the core function of most VC firms. It began by asking those backers to transfer the funds to accounts at SVB, as it has done for years, the person said.
That sure was fortunate timing.
And finally, this is just sad:
Khachiyan suggests the event is at least a partial letdown. “There’s no young people here,” she tells me. “They lied to us. They said it was young Republicans.” She’s mostly right. Aside from a couple of baby-faced Brooks Brothers types struggling with cigars, most of the under-30 set here is from the downtown Manhattan art scene, where Republican investors like Peter Thiel have poured money into efforts to astroturf a cool-kids conservatism.
Venture capital and EDGY reactionary politics are the new punk, you’ll see!