Venture capitalists ‘almost took the whole system down’ by having startups stow all their cash at Silicon Valley Bank, says one tech billionaire CEO

Venture capitalists ‘almost took the whole system down’ by having startups stow all their cash at Silicon Valley Bank, says one tech billionaire CEO
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Venture capitalists ‘almost took the whole system down’ by having startups stow all their cash at Silicon Valley Bank, says one tech billionaire CEO
Billionaire tech CEO Thomas Siebel said enterprise capital buyers ought to have ready startups for the potential for a collapse like SVB.

  • Tom Siebel, the billionaire CEO of C3.ai, provided a scathing post-mortem of the Silicon Valley Bank fallout.
  • Top VCs like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen let startups entrust their funds to a “C minus bank,” he said.
  • Federal regulators have said they might defend all prospects with deposits at Silicon Valley Bank.

As post-mortems of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse go, billionaire Tom Siebel has a blunt evaluation: Top enterprise capitalists ought to have seen it coming and ready their portfolio corporations, he told Insider. 

“These guys didn’t didn’t fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to anybody, they almost took the whole system down,” Siebel, CEO of software program agency C3.ai, told Insider on Monday. 

“The fact that Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Douglas Leone, and every other name that you’ve heard about, is letting all of their companies put all of their money in one — I mean, best case — C-minus financial institution, how is that possible?” he said, referring to the VC elites. 

Andreessen is a cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, whereas Peter Thiel is a cofounder of the enterprise capital group Founders Fund, and Leone is a accomplice at Sequoia Capital. 

“They’re supposed to be the adults in the room, have a fiduciary responsibility — not only to shareholders of their portfolio companies, but to their limited partners,” Siebel said. 

A consultant for Andreessen Horowitz declined to remark. A consultant for Sequoia Capital, which isn’t an investor in C3.ai, declined to remark. A consultant for Founders Fund did instantly reply to Insider’s request for touch upon Monday night. 

Since regulators closed down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, the 40-year-old establishment whose recognition in the startup world shot up in more latest years has been under the management of the Financial Deposit Insurance Corporation. 

The Biden administration has since indicated that the financial institution’s prospects, lots of whom embody smaller startups scrambling to pay staff, could be made entire for their deposits. 

A consultant for the FDIC declined to remark, and representatives for Silicon Valley Bank didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for touch upon Monday night.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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