Silicon Valley Bank was in Austin this week, sponsoring and hosting parties at AfroTech, the largest Black tech conference in the country. It has been eight months since the dramatic collapse of SVB, where hundreds, if not thousands, of founders fled to competing banks. At one of their parties, reggae and Afrobeats were playing at full volume, the drinks were flowing in abundance. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Did?
I did a vibration test to see.
For some black technicians, the bank’s presence in Austin left an uncomfortable taste. One founder at the conference, who asked to remain anonymous, told me he thought it was “in bad taste” for the bank to host a celebration at a black tech conference like this. “Those terrible consequences affected so many black founders who banked with them and pulled the rug out from under their feet,” he said.
Reputation has always preceded it. Luke Bailey, the founder of Neon Money Club, has never banked with SVB due to the bank’s concentrated risk. Even so, he told me that he has always respected the organization and that he found his presence at the conference endearing.
“While its leaders made some mistakes that led to its downfall, that bank had arguably the best emerging banking team in the country and practically invented the category,” he told me. He admits that many black founders he knew who left the bank never returned, but he believes many people have moved on.
“I think it’s great that the SVB team still seems committed to our community and screams ‘mission-driven’ regardless of the circumstances,” he said. “They kind of have to re-earn trust from the ground up.”
