skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Agreed 100% Yellen sucks. She would be bad in "good" financial times, but in our current times, its even worse. Mismanaged inflation (or at least perception of it) and is offering the US as a personal bank to Ukraine (among 100x other things).
Can I use university provided laptop for working on my own startup?
I was given a laptop from the University where I am currently working towards my PhD. My professor approved a laptop for me from his available funds. The co-ordinator of the lab ordered it from Apples's website and it was first vetted and secured by the IT staff of the department. I am currently in my 3rd year and I came up with a product idea, unrelated to my dissertation. I am working on the idea using my university laptop, will that be an issue in the future, especially if I start full-time on my product (in case it works out).
Punishing Depositors no but punishing them yes. There should be personal finanacial Clawback and potentially even legal conseguences for this type of mismangement. When Their personal wealth is at risk they will be more careful. As it is right now, they don't risk anything and will try the same thing again. The worst thing that can happen to them is to loose "unrealiasied profits" not loosing anything already realised.
Luckily you don't have to wait, guys like jason were already making those sorts of comments

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1561902763478396930
https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1561899007256866816
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3411764.3445585#sec-...
Shareholders are wiped out, so there will still be quite a bit of market scrutiny on banks.

Edit: just to point out that I'm not claiming this is "not a bailout because shareholders were wiped out". It's a bailout of course.
No.

I am not a professional in this field, so I'm not going to pretend to give one-size-fits-all prescriptions for something that is obviously complex and context specific. Instead, I will encourage all fellow founders and would-be founders that there are many things where they should just hire an expert. Like law, or regulatory compliance, or the best way to manage millions in cash.
Yep. A few dozen said so out loud, Sam Altman included. Mostly “publicized” via Twitter or other lower profile means.
Is the LLaMA model legal to download and use?
The basic analysis that the costs will ultimately fall on other banks' depositors is correct.

That's why it's a bailout.
Can anyone help me understand why would any bank practice proper risk management after this?

SVB took on risk by catering to high risk clients (startups). Growth metrics were great as a result. And stock performed spectacularly (up nearly 6x from April 2020 lows at ath).

More conservative banks like JPM, however, saw modest growth.

If you're a banker and your salary is tied to stock performance, why not just adopt the SVB playbook, take on riskier clients, show strong growth, cash out your stock options, and when it all ends, just walk away without any guilt since the government will bail out your customers anyway?
Ok but did you really not address the fact that Signature Bank literally collapsed today? You know that is a different bank, correct? Did you see the stocks and sector ETFs for regional banks last week?
> businesses can't afford to pay more

That's what we should call a "Low value" business, which is actually what many businesses and entire industries are in the real world. Restaurants say they can't find workers, when the truth is pay and work conditions cannot attract workers. They say they can't afford to pay higher salaries, the response is "then raise prices". They say "then we'll lose our customers". Good! The business is not valuable enough and that means customers have to do without.

There is absolutely no need to continue with low value economic activity.
Look, it's a meme, you're not supposed to take them seriously. The guy is an executive at SVB Securities, a separate branch that is completely fine.
Good to see the wealthy elites banding together to lookout for themselves!
Then certainly we should remove those superfluous brackets. Commas suffice for parenthetical asides. Sentences already imply grouping. I am a bit upset at your use of double quotes above. After all, we have the single quote, which consumes half as many valuable pixels and does just as good a job of indicating quotation. Colons of any level of completion merely separate clauses, a task more than thoroughly covered by commas and periods. Context is, of course, a great disambiguator, so I see no reason to use any statement terminator besides a period. What possible confusion could arise.

While we are at it, we have so many words. Perhaps we should simplify to one of the several published standards of simplified English. After all, the number of combinations of a thousand words in sentences of arbitrary length is enormous. Why anyone would opt for more byzantine words with more nuanced definitions and rich history of usage, tradition, and cultural value is beyond me.

We could go on with grammar (I mean really, what the hell is pluperfect), spelling ('c', for example is useless on its own, its uses being filled alternately by k or s), fonts (wtf is a serif), capital and lowercase letters, and I am sure many other topics.

Why do we keep more words, punctuation, and other linguistic and typographical devices around than we need? A mix of inertia and legitimate uses and perceived value. It seems to me that many people seem to draw a line between what is acceptable and what is not based on whatever they are comfortable and familiar with by the time they reach the end of their schooling.
When I learned the uses of the three dashes back in design school, I felt like I had learned some new English superpowers -- and the rules are easy to remember, too.

It's silly to me that some folks find it cumbersome, rather than an opportunity to be more precise in their writing, not to mention, more aesthetic.
wmf - I can't reply to you. So I'm writing here - you should take a look at this. https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/ins.... The fifth chart has that while SVB has 12% of Tier 1 Capital Ratio, their fire sale price is effectively 0. I haven't looked at the numbers in-depth, but you're right. It's not 150 billion, but on the other hand it's not known who would be willing to buy their assets. It sounds like the government is going to take back the Treasury bonds and then raise FDIC rates. But if that's the case then, given that the current treasury bonds are selling at above the rates of previously sold 10 year bonds, who would buy these bonds? I don't know precisely how much of their assets on hand are treasury bonds, but I doubt any of these would be saleable except at current market rates. So it would be closer to $150 billion * percentage treasuries * (current yield value - past yield value). I still think it would be high.
> People like Jason Calcanis were screaming on Twitter like the world was going to collapse and that the contagion would take down regional banks hurting ordinary consumers.

If the 18th-largest bank in the country were to be allowed to collapse, with depositors losing money due to something they had no control over, why would any non-insane depositor keep their money in the 17th, or the 19th largest bank?

Any rational person will follow this line of reasoning to conclude that the only safe place to deposit your money would be a too-big-to-fail bank. And nobody wants to see that.
Reinventing Productivity with AI
I dislike these populist, low resolution takes that use rhetorical devices ("gambled" instead of "invested") to try to persuade but are otherwise void of well-reasoned analysis and are more about criticising one's own confusion.

If you want something to be justifiably upset about, it's the carried interest loophole.
The fed has no time value issues. In the latest press release it is obvious they are going to take ownership of the bonds and issue currency directly to cover all of the deposits. As I said, they had the assets and large government institutions are not worried about holding onto those bonds for ten years.

They would never have been able to sell enough to not be able to cover their deposits - that’s when regulators stepped in.
Why not? Some private individuals with $10k to invest by treasuries.
The "changing the world" talk is just as hollow as corporate business talk. Just a way to talk about what you're doing without specifically mentioning that "we're doing this to get more money", which is the actual reason anyone ever does anything.

Some founders/investors believe their own BS because that's what a good salesman does.

Being practical and sugar coating words has been the way to do business forever. The startup speak is just a specific flavor of words that's popular in a region/culture now, is representative of the business culture to some degree, but is just as hollow as any pleasantry.
On Linux there are more good terminals than anyone could possibly need. I've tried a bunch - alacritty, kitty, foot, wezterm amongst others - and they all do more than I will ever need, and all do it well. I can't objectively choose between them to be honest so I've picked one arbitrarily (and I stay with it to avoid time-wasting). In any case terminals seem to me like pretty much a solved problem. If I were talented/knowledgeable enough to think I could make a really worthwhile software innovation, I'd pick something else to work on.
Just think of this moment as a great interview question during the next upcycle
Crypto focused bank and pretty small, even in consideration of historical bank runs
Why bootstrap? The VCs came through for their companies here. They got the government to change course. Many told their startups ahead of time to pull cash from a failing bank.
As we've seen this week, the scrutiny of depositors is far more powerful than that of shareholders.
Ask HN: What are you doing differently post-SVB?
The Fed has just announced that they're backstopping SVB's depositors beyond the $250k FDIC amount. What are you doing differently in the wake of this incident?

Are you diversifying your banking relationships since the possibility of a run is now on your radar?

Are you not diversifying because they just saved SVB (and announced some new programs that should protect against this sort of incident happening in the future), so you expect it would be less likely than before?

How do people feel about doing business with SVB in particular? Some people said that opening a commercial account with them required exclusivity — is this true/will it be enforced going forward?

Are there any silver linings to this scare?
Totally agreed.bailout anyway you want to cut and slice it! they should have put a cost on the depositors! Why do banks and depositors of other banks have to incur the additional cost coming from here!
Yeah, ironically had SVB had a strong consumer brand, they probably could've boosted their cash reserves by offering higher-yelding CDs to general public.
A run on the bank is a social phenomenon, and "VCs" aren't a singular monolith that acts in concert. The "VCs" didn't want this to happen any more than others.
This tweet is old and the arbitrage opportunity has passed.
SVB was solvent before the run. Is that still the case even after Wednesday/Thursday's fire sales, where they had to sell a bunch at a loss?
What does
"These assets will be valued at par"

Does that mean they will be valued at the fictional book value of the banks?

Or is there some other value that is going to be looked at?
> It's impossible to move on. There was insufficient funds to pay depositors; meaning, the money was gone - Since the money didn't vanish into thin air; somebody got that money through some scheme.

There was no theft. The bank bought bonds that decreased in value rapidly due to rising interest rates. Pure mismanagement, but not theft.
A lot of being repeatedly told to take the most charitable interpretation of peoples words and action. Hoping that folks are more than their animal instincts.

Naive, eh?
Meanwhile Peter Thiel is off plotting his next gambit to fleece and destroy this country.
2023 Design in Tech Report [pdf]
i don't think there's going to be very much 'moving on', in fact i think alot of 'moving backwards' is about to happen
I'm affiliated with Weaviate and am super happy to see the role of vector databases mentioned in the report (p.15 & p.22)
What other solutions are available?
I see it the other way around. The VCs started a panic. Name one other bank that could survive $42 billion in withdrawals in a single day. Other than Bank of Zimbabwe, obviously. Even Wells and JP Morgan would collapse under that strain. The VCs caused their own pain.
>punishing people for not having accounted for black swan events in their risk assessment is also not scalable

For a country that seems hellbent on abandoning individuals of lesser means to the vagaries of fate, to frequently swoop in to save those already of better standing when misfortune strikes seems pretty hypocritical.

Sickness is still the most frequent cause of bankruptcy in our country. What social programs we have prickle with difficulties in gaining or maintaining access, seemingly designed to make life harder for those already forced through misfortune to require them.

Half our political establishment regularly suggests the destruction of even these, intending to leave individuals with nowhere to turn at all.
Imagine that but with a video...record a concert with poor audio quality of the band and the phone injects the high fidelity song...
It does not, as they are far too small to be "systematically important". If they fail and their assets cannot support their deposits, their depositors will get a haircut.

This will not go unnoticed by depositors.

It's one of the clearer unfairnesses of this bad decision.
The CEO may have made out like a bandit, but the shareholders lost everything, and the next set of shareholders will think twice before retaining a CEO that engages in high-risk activities.

> 7) other banks want to hire executives from failed banks, go do it again somewhere else

As a shareholder of another bank, why the hell would you want to hire someone who took stupid risks, and lost everything owned by their previous set of shareholders?
The depositors could and should have been aware of the 250k FDIC limit and employed widely-available countermeasures including (manual or as-a-service) account spreading and/or private insurance.
> Maybe the fed should open a bank for deposits that's guaranteed but provides either tbill interest or zero interest.

> It's pretty ridiculous for people to need to judge whether their bank is fiscally sound.

This is a great idea. We should look into this more.

iirc three researchers asked this same question back in 2018.

> A potential policy recommendation was posed in 2018 by three researchers, two of whom worked in the Treasury Department. Under their proposal, the Federal Reserve would offer the option to all individuals and businesses in the United States to open a bank account, termed a “Fed Account,” with the Federal Reserve itself, providing an alternative to private banks or credit unions. Such an option could have significant effects on a wide array of monetary and economic issues.

https://econreview.berkeley.edu/fed-accounts-and-the-right-t...
But these are "don't tax my eggs and milk!" people, and "my shop is police-proof and sale receipts are the law" shopkeepers.
Why? You can cash out along the way - your stock would perform well since your growth metrics will be great.

In fact, I'd say that CEOs would be heavily incentivized to follow this strategy. Their compensation is tied to stock. Stock price is tied to growth (not risk management). You have all the reason to pursue growth, show great performance, watch the stock go up and keep cashing out before the eventual collapse.
> A small minority might find it so hard to not become obese that they simply cannot manage it, but that fact should not dominate public discourse and act as an excuse for everyone

I think the opposite is true, though I don't have statistics in front of me. Obesity traditionally had low rates of recovery. A huge percentage can never seem to figure it out.

The situation looks so grim that doctors were pushing to stop treating it as a "choice". I recall it being controversial, but somewhat agreeing with that perspective. Looking at a condition where people "want" to change, but almost always fail, it appears to look more like an incurable disease, than something that can easily be fixed with "discipline".

What's the point of guilt tripping people when the results are so consistently bad? I know there may have been some breakthroughs since then.
Guessing you're a pilot? This is my new go-to background noise. :)
Not for nothing but literally every person you cited, good and bad, came from well off families who built that wealth via capitalism. We'd be better off fixing the wealth disparity and making it so there are more people with a safety net that allows them to engage in gift economies like the open source software world.

It is difficult to be charitable when you have to worry where your next meal comes from.
And yet millions of Spanish and Latin American christians name their children Jesus, so I don't think that argument holds much water.
And here it starts.. Lots of prominent people have just been exposed by this whole fiasco. 100% truly exposed and they're not gonna like it.

They're gonna want to try to rebuild their reputations. What's coming is a lot of "who are you gonna trust me or your lying eyes?". Starting soon you're gonna hear all the sob stories about how the VCs all this wonderful all did X and Y and Z. And nothing we just saw really mattered. And downplaying how as soon as the going got tough they abandoned all of their SV ethos and immediately went begging to the government to be bailed out.

Be prepared because there will be a huge PR push soon like you haven't seen.
Circle and Coinbase will redeem 1 USDC for $1 during banking hours but not on weekends. Due to fallout from the SVB panic, you could have bought 1 USDC on various markets yesterday for $0.90 and sold it for $1.00 on Monday.
This is the third USDC partner bank to close this week, they only have 4 others left. High interest rates have weakened regular bank liquidity and the swings of stablecoin runs are toppling them like dominoes.

It is clear as day now that Crypto/stablecoins cannot bank in regular US banks and needs its own bank. Crypto is essentially a DDOS attack on a regular bank due to bank liquidity rules in the US. Normal banks are designed to hold a large spread of small accounts and thus keep a limited % of liquidity to cover withdrawal needs which are relatively low % for that type of customer. The rest of the cash is invested and produces a return.

Crypto has huge liquidity demands on small timeframes, especially when there are runs on exchanges. If normal banks are designed to move slowly and carefully to remain good stuarts of their depositors, crypto essentially trips that infrastructure with big swings.
It’s really amazing the number of people that don’t seem to understand that. It would be like if a dairy farmer overloaded his truck, crashed it and died. The government steps in and makes sure everyone gets milk while they sell off the cows. Then people say “this creates a moral hazard for dairy farmers to overload their trucks without consequences!”. No, dude. He died.
This isn't how this process works at all. Nothing precludes the FDIC from clawing back management pay if it was done illegally.

> If we want government coverage then we should enact laws to cover this kind of thing

We already have. The uninsured depositors will be repaid from premiums paid to the FDIC by the rest of the banking industry.
FDIC is arguing that taxpayers will not be affected because they are bankrolling this backstopping operation by forcing other banks to cover losses beyond the limit.

But banks will most likely recover this imposed “fine” from customers, which means that customers (aka: taxpayers) are the ones who are ultimately bankrolling this whole fiasco.
Five Arrested over unauthorized cultivation of modified Japanese killifish
I have the same problem. The only viable neo-shell in my eyes would have to be 100% Bash compatible anyway, so what's the point?
Would you mind summarizing the difference between GPT 3.5 and GPT-3.5 Turbo? I'm not clear about that.
When's the last time you saw a critical appraisal of any senior YC people on this forum? For a long time, Wilson, Andreesen and other marquee names in the VC world were treated with similar deference on HN.

Fawning media startup profiles and hagiographies are one of the reasons why Theranos, WeWork, and many smaller companies are able to thrive and even attract new investment and customers.
How is allowing banks to borrow at par value by pledging assets they already value at par value to back demand deposits inflationary?
SVB was too. This is a crypto driven collapse of banks.
Hey, I think that there is significant potential in developing small and specialized networks that can tackle specific tasks with higher accuracy. It could be also especially valuable for real-time or low-power applications. Additionally, there may be a market for selling well-trained assistants that are tailored to specific prompts or domains.
As soon as it ceases being an energy source for technology, it will transition into a food source for humans.

A barrel of oil contains 1.7MWh of energy, a grilled cheese sandwich is about 435 Wh of energy. A barrel of oil contains the equivalent of about 3900 grilled cheese sandwiches. At 80$/barrel, that is a 0.02USD per sandwich.
Why would #7 happen if shareholders get wiped out? Surely, people on the board and other C suite executives are big enough shareholders that they would care if their equity went to zero.
Are these substantiated reports or just tweet promises?
In what way is “just be rich lmao” easier?
I think of people like David Sacks preaching libertarianism and not taking money from the government until the moment things seemed uncertain at which point he’s practically begging for government bail out.

I think given his influence and hypocrisy this is despicable. But pathetic is another word that comes to mind.
Even older. Maurice Wilkes first proposed the concept in 1951 & the EDSAC-2, the first computer to use microprogramming, was operational by 1958.
To be fair, we're on a forum that was originally called "Startup News," created by a billionaire venture capitalist and run by a startup incubator. People do question the SV narrative, but this is still the lobby where all the people who drink the Kool-Aid hang out.
hmm. perhaps even a blue ribbon commission...
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on “Face the Nation,” March 12, 2023
I don't care about Wittgenstein or Chbosky. I can only care what meanings mean to me.

The use of 'we' is fine in many cases - when talking about a holiday, I can say 'we went to the beach' and that is understandable because of the context.

Its not fine to talk about 'we' in the context of something that is subjective, eg understanding or knowing. It is an assumption to say 'we know' unless you have checked all the people you are referring to really do know.

If you think this usage is acceptable - and apparently most people do - I'd love to hear an explanation. To me, it is sloppy and confused thinking, and actually it's use is ultimately a type of casual lie, because it overstates whatever-it-is.
It won't.

A bank will have to justify its investments to its regulators. And if those regulators have any helpful suggestions about "under-banked sectors" that could use additional capital, management will be very attentive.