I think the story of the relationships between SVB and the VCs would be fascinating.

Less so the executives, who probably did largely as their investors advise. Their individual business probably isn't that important on its own.

It's the VC partner who sees to it that 10 portfolio companies a year drop their capital raise into cheap deposits who really mattered.

That thread seems to be insinuating that startup executives were offered mortgages in return for keeping their treasury as deposits in SVB. If so that sounds like a massive violation of fiduciary duty. (I don't have any concrete evidence of this and I'm just going by one Twitter thread I've read, so take with a mountain of salt.)

i don't think it's as nefarious as that

the issue is that startup founders might have a lot of implied wealth based on the equity they hold and money raised but a "mainstream" bank is going to look at that equity, assess it as non-liquid and highly speculative and reject any loan applications

svb was more likely to extend personal loans to startup founders because -- in theory at least -- they better understood startup finance and they were incentivized to provide good service to prospective customers of their more business focused activities

Yes, that makes sense. Perhaps I was too cynical.