skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The VCs don't "owe" money to the startups: they "buy" equity with their money. The VCs aren't "out" the money deposited by the startup at SVB; that money was already exchanged for equity in the startup.

The VCs aren't happy because they and the startup both expected that the money-equity exchange meant that the startup would have working capital, so potentially the value of the equity that they got has fallen. This is a problem for both parties.
It is standard practice for many businesses. Managing cash is a tedious reality that most have not had to face thanks to zero interest-rate policy.
A lot of people (including me) talk past each other in SVB threads. I think it’s important to differentiate:

- helping FDIC insured, helping businesses with a few million in deposits that want to hit payroll, VCs, and “billionaires” - rich people’s funds

- a bailout (using taxpayer funds) vs receivership to make depositors whole as possible

- a bailout of the bank itself (aka 2008). Bailout of the depositors. Just trying to prioritize business deposits over other depositors, etc

I suspect a lot of emotional disagreement is really more about not understanding what each other is really saying than anything else.
There are many small teams within large enterprises, one does not exclude the other…
> This isn’t even the fault of startups. It’s a complete risk management mistake on the side of the bank.

And those startups should have diversified their millions of VC cash to reduce their exposure and over-centralization on a single bank. In fact, they should not have been over-relying on VC cash in the first place. Now they will be getting $250k out of the millions of VC cash they chose to place in SVB.

The FDIC system working as intended once a bank goes under. No bailouts and no exceptions.

> I bet a bank like Mercury or some other ones will grow to take SVB’s place.

Mercury is not a bank. [0] It just works with other FDIC banks like Evolve Bank & Trust and CFG (Choice Financial Group).

[0] https://mercury.com/how-mercury-works
> Another problem is, some people apparently hold a view that, if you make a product that works and sells, nothing else matters. Everyone will rush to earn a living around it. They feel empowered to take any position.

This has been my biggest issue around tech recently, and the whole conversation on ChatGPT and the latest generation of AI stuff just makes it a lot more obvious. They rush to make it and sell it, and that's all that matters. Societal externalities be damned. There's a lot of people way too invested in making sure stuff doesn't get discussed, all around.
So the play is to use funds on me as the manager instead of depositors. Then depositors get covered and I, the manager, keep my earnings.

It’s not that we punish the depositors but the scheme is set up that depositors suffer.

Imagine the mob stole all that money. It’s not punishing the depositors to not pay them back. The mob punished the depositors by stealing.

If I don’t buy homeowners insurance and some arsonist burns down my house, I’m out $100k to rebuild. Is it punishing me if the government doesn’t bail me out? The government isn’t punishing me, the arsonist punished me.

If we want government coverage then we should enact laws to cover this kind of thing and raise taxes and fees accordingly. We can’t enjoy the benefits of low regulation when it makes us money and then ask for coverage after the fact. After we’ve reaped the benefits of no regulation.
It may and I hope it does but I have no information one way or the other.
I’m not a lawyer, but it’s unclear to me - a random internet observer - that anyone performed anything illegal. It strikes me more as a bet gone colossally wrong, basic human mismanagement, capitalism in action, etc.
> It wasn't risky as long as prime rate stayed super low.

That sounds a bit like "it's not risky to driver a motor vehicle as long as you don't get into an accident".
the ability to wait till maturity = takes billions in losses
Thanks for the recommendation, tracking it down.

And yes, modeling at the higher functional level can be very useful; knock out the Wernicke's center and speech goes, visual cortex, vision, etc... So, with a more detailed functional description of each level, we may wind up with a model with useful predictive value.

Tho, that said, how does this approach create a truly robust abstraction from the lower level wetware? Would it provide ability to fully reproduce computations? Would it account for lower-level changes in health, hormones, electrolyte levels, neurotransmitter-active drugs...?
For a long time, I thought there is actually a word "noone" pronounced with an "oo" sound like "noon". You know, like no one says "whom" anymore but you still see it written.
Watch Xi Jinping strangle the Dengist economic paradigm
There's a difference between "at risk" and doomed and Thiel at the least accelerated things to the latter. Something probably could have been worked out with a little bit of cooperation instead of screaming fire, but I think he likes chaos and this helps his startups by damaging competitors. I'm sure we'll find out a lot more in the future about the timing of things and whether he was really reacting to urgent problems or just creating them.
I'm more concerned about whether or not people on BSD or OSX can use my scripts to be honest
In Emacs this can be done with emacs-w3m or eww.
How are they taking your money?
On the one hand this does provide some clarity. On the other hand it also reeks of “this is why this could never happen at JPM.”
Can’t wait until you learn that you can copyright a database. As in a collection data and it’s relation fixed in a tangible medium.

So yes, by current definition model weights are absolutely eligible for copyright.
The web isn't "fully commercialized" today even. Endless hobby sites, non-profit groups, and things such as clubs(bike clubs, etc), are completely free of any commerical intent or advertising.

Even government sites are ad free, non-profit, non-commercial by their very nature.

In 2004, before modern-class smartphones, before endless smaller companies even had a web presence, before facebook was a big thing, there was still mostly ad-free, commercial free content.

And I should add here, paying for a computer and internet link at home, or paying for a server in a datacentre, or buying a pre-configured wordpress site, without ads, are all commerical free endeavours.

Otherwise, nothing was ever commerical free, because everyone always paid for resources to provide content in some way.

Paying for resources, does not make a thing commerical.

You and I have a very different view of the past. Were you on the web pre-2000? I ask, because I don't understand the difference in our opinions.
“It’s fair to ask about the underwriting discipline of VC firms that put most of their liquidity in a single bank with this kind of risk profile.”
Given the decline of boys' performance in K-12 and -15% differential in college graduation compared to women, I wonder whether this method/tech will benefit boys at all or if it will continue to benefit mostly girls, doubling down on the pedagogy that has gotten us here.
Ok, maybe that's true, maybe it's not? We don't know yet. Is that worth the collapse of the regional banking system in this country even if that is true? I'd prefer to have choices with my money, not just Citibank, Chase, and Wells Fargo.
The weights don't do much without the model right? So shouldn't weights + model be considered together?
I’m jealous. I don’t drink nor have social media accounts (besides HN).
It seems that SVB had enough assets cover 80-90% of all depositors regardless if they fall under the FDIC limit or not
> Anyone arriving at the U.K. border by air or rail without an ETA will be turned away, including if they arrive via Ireland but are not Irish or British citizens.

How exactly is this going to work with an open border between Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland?

For that matter, wouldn't requiring an ETA for Republic of Ireland citizens to travel to Northern Ireland be a violation of the Good Friday Agreement, even independent of what happens at the border?
So, the thing I said? Are you fine with substantially more burdensome requirements as long as it doesn't impact you personally?
Right, but those people are not getting bailed out. They're losing ownership of their bank!
No one who knows what they're talking about is objecting to the bank's remaining assets being distributed between depositors. But there's talk of taxpayer money being used to make depositors 100% whole regardless of how many assets remain, and I think that's where the controversy is.

Everyone has always known that $250k is the max that's guaranteed to be given back to you, and the idea of the government paying back more out of taxpayer funds because a lot of VCs gave their startups bad advice rubs people wrong.
It gets repeated over and over again because if SVB money is locked up for weeks/months while they unwind positions startups won’t be able to make payroll.
Curious why it would be copyright vs patent. Weights are in essence part of an invention - I think the specific numbers would be pretty weird to copyright, but patenting the system that includes the model architecture and training process would offer a much more robust protection that's more along the lines of past physical inventions.

I'd be interested to look and see if there are any old analog computer patents, and how they are worded? Like if the specify list of resistor values, or focus more on architecture and tuning. I think that's a possible precedent to look to.
The other thread was wild and the conclusions in this memo disagree with many of the assertions that commenters have been throwing around–accusing depositors of recklessly banking at SVB to chase higher yields and accusing SVB of playing fast and loose with risky investments.

JPM says neither of these were the case:

> “At the end of 2022, SIVB only offered 0.60% more on deposits than its peers as compensation for the risks illustrated below; in 2021 this premium was 0.04%.”

> “The irony of SIVB is that most banks have historically failed due to credit risk issues. This is the first major one I recall where the primary issue was a duration mismatch between high quality assets and deposit liabilities.”
Before people get too excited about letting it all burn, I recommend everyone watch this talk by an economist on the 2008 recovery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrFSO62p0jk

Spoiler alert (18:30): It was entrepreneurship that turned the economy around. Not fed policy.

SVB put their deposits in US Treasury Bonds. Commonly regarded as the safest investment vehicle there is. Then the fed raised interest rates, completely screwing over this strategy. Then VCs panicked, like sheep.

So now we're in a situation where the most successful startups in the innovation sector are at risk of being wiped out while the US economy is being guided toward recession to cool inflation. Go watch that talk- then tell me you really think its a good idea to let it all burn.
> The administrator kept asking “is the juice worth the squeeze?” Well no, not at all.

If you answer 'no', then they move on to the next thing, and ask again.
It will be less than %100, because of the unrealized losses on SVB's bond portfolio. Regardless of the amount, there will be delays in returning those funds as FDIC liquidates.
Large accounting firms hire tens of thousands per year.

They have significant churn.

That said, when I worked at one, I didn’t have an office. I didn’t even have a dedicated desk.
How is it your money? It's not a taxpayer funded bailout, the FDIC is just going to forcibly liquidate SVB's assets and pay back customers to the extent possible with those proceeds.
“If you get any kind of loan from SVB, you’re required to keep your cash with SVB”.

Really? How would this be enforceable or even discoverable?
Don't want to move the goalposts, but I think it's more accurate to say that most people (and companies) park their money in banks with the following expectations:

* It's easily and quickly available

* The number only goes smaller when the account owner authorizes it for stuff the account owner wants to spend money on

* The account owner does not have to think about any of the actual logistics of making the above

Naturally, these are in tension - it costs money to make all of this happen. And since people want the number in the account to not go down (through fees or whatever), then 'naturally' the bank needs to make $$$ somehow.

The flip side of your original question about "business model" validity is that the business model is heavily subsidized by the state and overall society because this particular business model generates a lot of liquidity, which is generally believed to be net beneficial for governments, societies and countries.

In effect, this entire business model and all the regulation and laws and structures put in place are attempting to systemically will into being a high-trust environment. The possible downsides of this system more or less scale with the size of the gap between the actual underlying society, and the degree of trust implied by the system.
> Imagine a 70 year old woman who just lost her husband and sold her house to downsize to an apartment. She has $1 million in her SVB account and plans to live off the interest in her retirement. Should this 70 year old widow take a $750k haircut because she hasn’t spent the last few years brushing up on SVB 10-k filings and calling up SVB’s board of directors to ask them how they plan to manage interest rate risk?

That is simply awful financial management. You can be extremely unlucky and have it happen the day you get your deposit, but that seems like an annoying edge case which is unlikely to happen in the real world.

In my jurisdiction across the pond, investment funds are the easiest method to manage the account insurance risk. They need to be legally and economically separated from the broker you are managing them through, so if whoever you are brokering with goes bankrupt, you still own them. You can access them with a new broker after a bit of hassle.

If you want low-risk, pick funds investing in government-backed bonds. High-risk choose stock market-based index funds.

Now the only thing counting towards the $250K limit is whatever you have in the brokerage account between transfers. Easy peasy, your risk of a bank collapse is zero and you have the money available within a couple of bank days notice.
Apple isn’t selling you a piece of hardware. Apple is selling you access to an ecosystem.

> There’s also an acceptance that, if you use a Mac or one of Apple’s devices, it will connect to Apple for a whole load of good reasons.

Yes. And possibly even some less good. I don’t know, I’m on the outside looking in.

Apple is fascinating because it is both fast and slow.

Apple moves the industry forward by force. The iMacs of long ago (…fuck) forced USB on us, for better or worse.

On the other end are things like VR and AR headsets. Apple isn’t sleeping, but it isn’t rushing quite as much as others. In this case it might be more than it wants.

There are hardware changes that exist specifically for the end user’s protection. Even if that were verifiably to be for purely virtue signaling, that’s a positive development.

All this to say that as much progress as Apple has made in some of these areas, if you don’t want to embrace the ecosystem, and wait for Apple to reach where you are, you may want to look elsewhere, or do it yourself.

If you sometimes take a bite of steak and think of The Matrix, taking a bite of Apple can be just as enjoyable. Or dysphoric. Or both.

Apple moves at the speed Apple finds most appropriate, and in some cases it may not be for you.
"The sector with serious damage to job openings is 'Information.' The small sector with only 3 million employees includes web search portals, data processing, data transmission, information services, software publishing, motion picture and sound recording, broadcasting including over the Internet, and telecommunications"
The purpose of the $250k per-person-per-bank limit is to encourage large depositors to spread their money among many banks, which reduces risk for both them and the system. However, it's not clear that this limit is really the ideal design.

In the financial crisis 15 years ago, the FDIC in practice guaranteed 100% of deposits. They had to in order to keep people from running all the banks. Since then, we've all been told that banks are safe now because of new regulations. Lots of people have become complacent and haven't felt the need to manage multiple bank accounts to stay within FDIC limits.

SVB's collapse has suddenly let everyone know that, oh, those FDIC limits do actually matter and if you are over them in any of your accounts you had better start moving money. Unfortunately, that's likely to result in runs on lots more small banks as everyone moves their balance in excess of $250k over to JP Morgan (the bank that definitely can't fail).

Sure, it's easy to say now that it's all those people's fault for not managing their risk properly. But not long ago, a $2.5-millionaire opening 10 different bank accounts to stay under FDIC limits would have been called paranoid. And in any case, stupid or not, allowing runs on lots more banks could at some point lead to large-scale collapse of the financial system, which would be bad for much more than just those large depositors.

So it may be in everyone's interests for the FDIC to once again guarantee 100% of deposits. (I say "may", I don't pretend to be enough of an expert to decide this!) And maybe the $250k limit should be rethought going forward, into some other sort of rule that encourages diversification without encouraging contagion when a big bank fails?

(Disclosure: I had an account at SVB, but it was under the FDIC limit. So I don't have any personal need for a "bail out".)
That totally depends on what you're looking for. Some of my favorites are

- Primer (academic subjects)

- Linking your Thinking (tutorials for Obsidian)

- Stuff Made Here (Entertaining and impressive robotics projects)

- a life engineered (all sorts of career advice stuff)

- Reducible (animations of CS subjects)

- ByteByteGo (short and informative videos about system design)

- Wolfgang's Channel (all sorts of home networking/selfhosted videos)

- Jack Rhysider (entertaining and informative podcasts about cyber security and cyber crime)

- Dark History (disaster documentaries)
I opened a new business account at Wells last fall, it took maybe a week to apply and get approval? In any case, many companies have multiple banking relationships already - if I were in their shoes I’d be moving all of the excess funds to the biggest bank available.

It’s not fair to the well managed small banks but honestly I don’t care at all about my bank, I just want to pay bills. I’d bank at the Federal Reserve if they offered an interest free checking account with unlimited bank insurance.
When I learned that an Instant Pot doesn't do anything particularly different or better for my requirements than my already owned slow cookers and pressure cooker, apart from built-in timer programming, I passed. The pressure cooker is completely portable to kitchen stoves, camp stoves, or open fires (on a grate) and doubles as an autoclave for extreme sanitization if ever needed.
There's a difference between wanting something to be free and expecting it to be free.

We'd all like a free coffee, but people glay pay $5 at Starbucks every morning because they know things cost money. Ask these same people for $5 to install an app on their phone – that was built over years by a team of hundreds – and they will flip out. People who used to buy a single $5 newspaper or magazine from the newsstand will not pay $5 for a monthly subscription to the same paper.

There's a fundamental disconnect in how people value digital assets, and that is why the internet is the way it is.
20hrs on a Qantas plane: the future of aviation or a fresh hell in economy?
A pity, I'd have liked to visit Scotland again. Perhaps it's just me, but when a country decides to treat me like a criminal suspect instead of a welcomed visitor I just don't want to go there anymore.
Poor housing has detrimental physical and mental health benefits, I'm not sure many people would find this such a dubious statement?
>>People here are effectively suggesting that I shouldn't get my paycheck and that the company I work for should lose most of its money

I got no dog in this fight(as I'm an Indian, and stay in India). But I guess what they are saying is they don't want to be paying for it. They just want whoever is responsible to make somebody else pay for these problems.

So bailout is ok, they just don't want to pay for it, and may be find other people(VCs, other billionaires) who can invest/bailout that bank on their terms.
SpongeBob would never be a red card.
The very first line should tell you how little the article author knows how it works:

> Greg Becker used prearranged stock-trade plan to sell shares

He didn't "use a prearranged plan", a plan went into action and sold the shares. Becker had already filed paperwork to sell those shares at that specific time.

To my recollection, that was 10% of his shares. Becker wasn't planning months in advance on the bank smashing into a wall precisely a few days after he sold a measly 10%.
I've heard it was mostly they had credit agreements with svb that required them to bank exclusively with svb
I'm a bit confused by some of the discussion here. Many people talk as if there was factually no underlying issue with the bank, and the run was caused purely by panic. For that to be true though, I think the rationale presented alongside the urging to pull out would need to have been fabricated, or "mistaken". But I haven't seen anyone explicitly claim that. Am I missing something? Is there just a lack of general understanding of the prisoner's dilemma?
I think those were “just” the yearly bonuses all employees receive.
I have not seen anyone on HN ever claim to have exchanged the necessary 100K USDT for $99k or 1M+ USDT for $1M+ with Tether's parent company.
> Everyone who have ever managed bond portfolio knows that he must hedge interest rate risk. And every bank is doing that.

How are other banks hedging interest rate risk?

And how is the opposite end of this hedge hedging their position?
You are absolutely asking for risks to be socialized. You're asking for corporate welfare.

Depositors do have a reasonable expectation that their deposits are safe. That's what the FDIC does: makes sure that 99% of people never have to worry about bank failures. For the 1%, well, it's time to put the big-boy pants on and accept sometimes in market economies there are disruptions. Something startup CEOs were perfectly happy to accept as long as it was other people experiencing the disruption.

No regulation can totally prevent this from happening to rich depositors in the future as long as the banks are capitalist institutions trying to turn a profit. There is no reward without risk. Arguing for zero risk is basically arguing for nationalizing the banks and creating a federal Boring Depository Bank whose job it is to just hold cash and that takes no risks with it.

Which honestly, it would be great to see the CEO of YC arguing for reducing the role of capitalism in key parts of the economy. But I'm guessing that the VC class's interest in tighter regulation is going to last exactly as long as it takes to get government subsidies, and then will go back to its previous extremely negative levels.
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