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Felix Salmon

There were a LOT of bank failures in 2008-9, iirc @RolfeWinkler or maybe it was @calculatedrisk kept a running tally every Friday. But I don't remember uninsured corporate depositors talking about suddenly not being able to make payroll. Why not?

@felix It was Calculated Risk, and in 2008, most banks got taken over by other banks. It's really rare for a bank to actually get shut down like this.

@felix Also, if memory serves, the largest collapse of 2008 was WaMu, which is the sort of bank you think of when you think bank - people with checking accounts. SVB was never a retail bank; something like 90% of their depositors are corporate accounts.

I've been to their Boston office - it is not a place with tellers and cash, it is an office building with conference rooms. If I had asked to deposit cash they would have looked at me like I had 3 heads.

@Malaclypse @felix 96% of their accounts were >$250k. Also, suspect plenty of small companies missed a payroll or two because of the 2008 disruptions, but SV startups get disproportionate media coverage relative to other small businesses.

Also, no one was tweeting about missing payroll in 2008, because no one was tweeting ;)

@felix companies didn't run payroll through startups that banked with SVB