> Debatable. The amount is not disclosed. Also just in this HN thread there were some talk about how even if someone saw it coming taking the actual position was a bit risky (because borrowing the stock in a high-interest rate env can easily lead to closing the position too soon).

Regardless of how much money they actually made on the play, they can now openly claim to be the ones who saw this coming. The marketing value to them is distinct from the actual financial return and clearly why they decided to do a public interview with a major financial publication on the subject. And yes, it was obviously a risky even if the position made sense logically, hence the old maxim, "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent". But all of that is irrelevant to the fact that this particular play worked out for them and they can use it to promote themselves. There were people who tried to short mortgage backed securities in the early 2000s and got the timing wrong. Michael Burry got the timing right. At least a part of that was luck, but it hasn't stopped him from using it for self-promotion.

> Its style does not match the subject matter, nor the rest of the article. It's too eloquent, too visual, yet imprecise.

I honestly don't even understand what you're trying to say. Stylistically it seems completely coherent to me, and how can the sentence be "too eloquent"? I also don't see what's imprecise about it. I also have no idea what "too visual" means. Are you referring to terms like walking through and eyeballing? These are very common terms for explaining and tracking respectively and quite clear in context.

> Were the doors really closed? What does that even mean to today's "terminally online" audience, who read these articles?

"close its doors" is a very common idiom [0] meaning to shut down. I have no idea why a "terminally online" audience would be relevant to that fact.

> What's the name of the regulator?

There's only one California financial regulator. They're directly referencing the state entity responsible for regulating financial institutions in California. The official name for that organization is The Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, but it's quite clear who they're talking about based on context.

> closely eyeballing for months ... yet in the next paragraphs they mention "last two years". Okay, sure, it's not a "gotcha" or some huge logical contradiction, but it's just unexplained to me as a reader.

You're taking two referenced timeframes out of context. "Eyeballing for months" is how long Wettlaufer has been tracking the situation. "Last two years" is the amount of time the situation has been unfolding. The author is stating that Wettlaufer has spent the last few months reviewing the last two years of activity. There's nothing inconsistent about that.

> All in all, I don't like the pacing, the format, the style, the terrible one sentence paragraphs of this article.

That's fine if you don't personally like it. We can agree to disagree here. But I objectively I don't think your criticisms land.

> To me this article, while has some interesting factoids, comes off as a strange almost personal account of the writer's "oh no one knows what will happen now" emotionally charged state. (Which is okay for a blog, but underwhelming for HN front page.)

Again, perhaps we're at the point of agree to disagree, but I don't see anything emotional about this article at all and it in no way seems like a personal account. It's a narrative written form a perspective but I think it very clearly lays out a number of facts about the situation.

>> The bank effectively touches every part of the private markets.

>Yeah, but that's like saying buying a lot of SP500 touches every part of public markets. Yes, SVB was big, 209B big, but when the Vision fund is 150B, and VC has more than 2T, and PE has more than 4T assets under management, I'm not sure what to think of this.

You've cherry picked one sentence out of a paragraph. The rest of the paragraph makes very clear why this bank is important and important to start-ups and VCs specifically.

[0] https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/closed+its+doors