How Did Silicon Valley Bank Fail? And What Are the Impacts? : Planet Money : NPR

Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images

Noah Berger/AFP via Getty Images

Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in the United States, a go-to bank for tech startups and high-profile venture capitalists. Yet, in just a few days, it collapsed. Rumors that Silicon Valley Bank might be in trouble spread quickly in group text messages and Twitter posts. Depositors rushed to access their accounts, withdrawing $42 billion in a single day. On Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Silicon Valley Bank after regulators declared it failed.

As the dust settles on the biggest bank failure and bank bailout in recent years, we are still looking for what happened. But poor investment choices, weak regulation, and customer panic all contributed to the bank’s collapse. We’ll delve into the bank’s collapse to see what it can teach us about banking itself.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin, with assistance from Dave Blanchard. Editing was done by Keith Romer, and design was done by Brian Jarboe. Sierra Juarez did the fact-checking. Our acting executive producer is Jess Jiang.

music: “I don’t gossip.“ “Cool little penguin” and”Imagine“”.

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