And… It’s Gone.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a good meme probably nets a hundred thousand. Or perhaps a million.

But if that meme’s uninsured, the FDIC will cover two hundred and fifty thousand words at the very most… unless, well, you’ve probably already heard.

With so much fodder from SVB’s blast radius, Signature Bank in New York, and the ol’ bailout (pardon me, ‘backstop’) song and dance… I’ll let memes do the talking.

Here’s some favorites:

Memes of the day

Thoughts on the News?

Just a few.

– SVB’s implosion and the resulting valuation hit means that banks will tighten their lending belt even more.

-Main Street will feel it… not just start-ups and crypto investors.

-We’re already feeling it with commercial and residential real estate values getting hammered.

And for the official record:

-For many of us, all this news in California has unlocked another level—the ordeal in the cave.

Shall we dig deeper?

Risk and Comeuppance  

I’ve talked at length about the hero’s journey, the recurring event cycle that crops up in every movie you watch, connects storytelling from culture to culture, and gives us the entrepreneur’s journey.

In the end, it touches on the mystery of human nature, shedding light on the fact that while it does not change, people learn and grow through trials.

Even financial trends give a glimpse of this.

In his SVB post-mortem for Disciple Funds, Cullen Roche writes:

“Markets change over time. The assets change, the companies change, the people change. But one thing that doesn’t change is human emotion. We get caught up in the fervor of the booms and then we overreact in the busts. It’s human nature and it’s the thing that makes markets appear like the eternal recurrence I previously discussed.

The Silicon Valley Bank crisis is interesting because people are looking at banking as the tsunami. And yes, the tsunami causes damage… but it’s not the causal factor here.”

By ‘casual factor’ Roche means the pandemic boom of mid’ 2020—zero interest, stimulus trillions, a Disneyland trip for anyone who happened to invest in Zoom stock… fair enough.

But what makes me nod is his bit about human emotion. Getting caught up in the booms and overreacting in the busts.

If it’s in our collective nature to do that again and again, then perhaps the life-and-death ordeal that frightens, tests, but raises us to life and another act of the story is more necessary than we realize.

Who knows?

Maybe the forced perspective shift of an $81 billon loss can help us rise above the debate… and see bank meltdowns as part of a recurring cycle of innovating, breaking things, and owning our mistakes in a uniquely American way.

Maybe—and not just this time around—learning from the ordeal means taking responsibility. It means accepting the risks associated with those risks.

Here for the Journey  

I’ll end with a hard question: how would you like to be the CEO of SVB?

Regardless of what you think about him, and for all the accusations and meme fodder… he’s facing the ordeal. After twenty years of accepting these types of risks and benefitting from them, darkness. If this comeuppance is part of a new cycle of innovation, then as history shows, we will probably, if eventually be OK.

Just look at this as part of the hero’s journey.

Part of the process.

With that in mind, little ole Dare Capital is here to help… just like we were the last time big American banks cycled through a Global Financial Crisis.

Factoring is old, not to mention Lindy, and we are too.

Give us a call about working capital, and we’ll tell you all about the Dare client experience.

Until next time,