It's objectively hilarious that the top VCs put on their "banking expert" hats and misdiagnosed SVB's public statements so badly that they created a run on their own bank.
Let's be honest, very few of the VCs calling their founders telling them to pull their accounts had any clue about what "held-to-maturity" vs "available for sell" meant in the context of SVB's investment portfolio, or had any real knowledge about what the actual issue was within the bank. They were just hearing rumors/reading tweets that the bank was going to collapse and taking it at face value without any diligence.
They made the calls, retweeted the tweets, and then read the explainers on substack the following day to figure out what was actually happening. It was pure herd panic behavior and should make a great case study some day.
Let's be honest, very few of the VCs calling their founders telling them to pull their accounts had any clue about what "held-to-maturity" vs "available for sell" meant in the context of SVB's investment portfolio, or had any real knowledge about what the actual issue was within the bank. They were just hearing rumors/reading tweets that the bank was going to collapse and taking it at face value without any diligence.
They made the calls, retweeted the tweets, and then read the explainers on substack the following day to figure out what was actually happening. It was pure herd panic behavior and should make a great case study some day.