VC Bites VC’s

Congratulations to wealthy venture capitalist Michael Moritz for pointing the finger at fellow VC's in his news daily, the San Francisco Standard, for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. This Standard article blames the catastrophic bank run on "spooked" VC's. The Standard, which Moritz founded and finances, reported that while publicly supporting the bank, big tech VC's have privately been telling their start-up clients to bail out. The Standard also observed that big Silicon Valley funders like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen have not signed the open letter supporting the bank.

For the record, my own start-up Salon did business with Silicon Valley Bank, because it was one of the only banks at the time that understood the emerging digital publishing industry. Countless start-ups have depended over the years on small or medium-sized lending institutions like Silicon Valley Bank.

As the Standard observes, the wealthy tech investors who sparked the panic that destroyed Silicon Valley Bank have only themselves to blame. And now, of course, they want the government (taxpayers like us) to pay for their wreckage.