Silicon Valley Bank's defining moves.
The defining strategic moves at Silicon Valley Bank — each one explained and grounded in the record.
The Fall · Decision Forks
SVB Didn't Die in 36 Hours. It Died Over Three Years of Exams Nobody Acted On.
The story is a freak 36-hour bank run. The real number is uglier: $42 billion gone in one day, on a bank the Fed had flagged for interest-rate risk in 2020, 2021, and 2022 — and never once forced to fix.
8 min
The Crisis Response · Crisis Response
The 'Twitter Bank Run' Is a Comforting Lie. SVB Was Already Dead.
The story is that a tweet killed Silicon Valley Bank in 48 hours - $142 billion fleeing the door. The Fed's own post-mortem says otherwise: social media accelerated a collapse that years of mismanaged interest-rate risk had already made inevitable.
7 min
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
SVB Didn't Die From Bad Loans. It Died Because All Its Depositors Knew Each Other.
SVB's $91 billion bond book lit the fuse. But the bomb was a depositor base so networked it pulled $40+ billion in a single day - March 9, 2023. No diversified bank could run on itself that fast.
8 min