For a group of people trying to position themselves as thought leaders, this wasn’t exactly a PR win. Others in the industry saw the display as counterproductive.
“There’s a universal consensus that libertarian VCs screaming for bailouts didn’t help,” said one person involved in managing Silicon Valley’s crisis response. “Promoting start-up founders and non-tech business owners is a better face for the industry than the Atherton guy who fears his portfolio companies will take a hit.”
At the same time, hopes were high for a VC comeback among tech pundits on Twitter in Washington.
“Uninsured depositors who are sophisticated risk managers will suffer losses. There is no relief here.” Matt Stoller of the Economic Liberties Project tweeted:advocates for more aggressive federal intervention to combat monopolies.
The stage looked ready for a big and messy clash between two countervailing forces.to exclude It turns out to be nothing more than a revenge fantasy.
In fact, Washington ready and willing Step in. Silicon Valley Bank, which had a historically bad year for bond markets, wasn’t the only depository institution to hit its bond portfolio hard. And Silicon Valley startups weren’t the only ones with large amounts of uninsured cash in their banks.
And most people in Silicon Valley were genuinely happy to get help. sax tweetedwith applause emojis as the Fed, Treasury, and FDIC announce their bailout plans.
What does this mean The end of Valley and Capital sparring? of course not.
Now that Silicon Valley has what it wants from Washington, VCs may be free to return to their plans for planned obsolescence of the capital. And members of Congress want to keep pushing Big Tech CEOs in front of them.
But both sides have their fair share of jeopardy, and they know it, as the SVB collapse has revealed.
Washington needs to ensure tech entrepreneurs stay in the US and not become too disillusioned. With the current generation of Silicon Valley services making it easier than ever to launch a global business from anywhere, the potential for the next generation of global tech giants to emerge outside the United States becomes more real. target.
When it comes to big tech, as once-nimble start-ups grow into corporate behemoths, they’re increasingly bound by the federal government. As we explore , conflicts with government policy makers (such as the FAA and state remittance authorities) are becoming more frequent and consequently larger.
This has affected their corporate culture, says Google and Facebook veteran Nu Wexler, a former congressional aide who now works in public relations. “Corporations were more liberal simply because they were operating in unregulated locations,” he said.
Even when Elon Musk lashed out at the authority that exists on Twitter last year, his satellite network was helping keep Ukraine online in response to the Russian aggression. Even Thiel, despite libertarian provocations, is financially entangled with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, some of the largest clients of his data analytics firm, Palantir.
The startup’s libertarian ethos and its most vocal backers could also be softened somewhat. Last year, Catherine Boyle of A16Z said, “Building American Dynamismcalled for “building an enterprise that supports national interests,” including national security. Once upon a time, in Silicon Valley, the idea of ”American dynamism” might have seemed very patriotic. Today, in A16Z, fund name.
