I think there’s a shocking lack of political literacy at work here because any action that could be perceived as a bailout by a layperson will be an albatross around the neck of any politician that supports such measures. Several of the VCs who spent Q4 of last year gloating about layoffs are now saying the sky is falling - so they aren’t exactly a sympathetic group. You can belly-ache about populism or whatever but that’s why you’re seeing tepid responses from Washington.
For the record I hope SVB gets taken over and depositors are made whole quickly but I think as an industry we are overestimating our political capital.
Yep, the politics of this are terrible as well. Tech leaders like Sacks have spent years trolling people and making themselves as odious as possible and now they're crying for a bailout, while still being as odious as possible and blaming the government for this.
But apart from the politics, even something as simple as Garry Tan calling for the government to guarantee all deposits is simply calling for the government to break its own laws.
For the record I hope SVB gets taken over and depositors are made whole quickly but I think as an industry we are overestimating our political capital.