A customer stands outside of a shuttered Silicon Valley Bank headquarters on March 10 in Santa Clara, California. Day by day, month by month, year by year, greed is ruining the tech industry’s image.
Silicon Valley Bank was a niche institution catering to financing for the tech industry. Two weeks before its collapse, the bank’s CEO, Greg Becker, reportedly sold $3.6 million in company shares. That’s right. Becker apparently made sure he got his money knowing the potential that others could be caught holding the bag.
Don’t blame the Bay Area congressional delegation for SVB’s ensuing collapse. No Bay Area senator or representative voted for a bill to weaken the regulations. But enough Democrats elsewhere joined with Republicans to pass it, and President Trump signed it into law in 2018.