Benchmark's Bill Gurley calls Silicon Valley Bank's collapse 'a black swan event' at SXSW, and casts aside criticism of the move to secure its depositors
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- Benchmark's general partner Bill Gurley defended the decision to cover SVB's depositors.
- The venture capital veteran spoke briefly about the bank after interviewing Tim Ferriss at SXSW.
- Gurley also deflected criticism that the venture-capital ecosystem relied too heavily on SVB.
At South by Southwest, hundreds of attendees were waiting to hear what legendary venture capitalist Bill Gurley had to say about Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, after the implosion cast an uneasy cloud over the annual tech festival.
The Benchmark general partner, who is no stranger to sharing his hot takes about venture capital news publicly, spoke about the bank's implosion to a packed audience in a panel with Tim Ferriss, the host of "The Tim Ferriss Show" Monday at SXSW.
Gurley called Silicon Valley Bank's collapse a "black swan event."
"Do nothing and wait is my new habit," he quipped about the panic that ensued over the weekend until it became clear that depositors would be covered.
Unlike several other prominent venture capitalists, Gurley has been relatively silent on social media surrounding SVB's collapse. Gurley retweeted US Senator Mitt Romney Sunday night after federal regulators announced that depositors in Silicon Valley Bank would have full access to their cash.
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"A lot of people did a lot of crazy manic things this weekend that didn't matter because it all got solved this morning," he told Ferriss.
He also responded to critics of venture capitalists and startup founders that claimed that they were too heavily reliant on one institution.
"T0 people that expect every startup should just have to eat it if they pick the wrong bank, I'm not sure if that's particularly reasonable," he said. "All of Wall Street thought it was okay, so why should every CFO of every startup be just as good or better than all of Wall Street?"
He also contrasted the recent crisis to the 2008 financial crisis, in which the government bailed out the big banks with taxpayer dollars, which did not happen in SVB's case.
"At the very least, we should reflect on what happened in the past before we throw a lot of darts at what's happening here," he said.