Silicon Valley Bank: The Rise and Fall of a Community Bank for Tech

This book provides a first-hand account of the founding, ascent, and dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a tech community bank founded in 1982 with US＄5 million that became the nation’s 13th largest bank and tech industry’s lender and bank. In this pathbreaking work, which challenges conventional understanding of risky tech lending by showing how an independent community bank became the go-to bank for the tech industry in the United States, Xuan-Thao Nguyen includes interviews with key players, ranging from the original founders and early employees to the current CEO of SVB. Chapters explore how the relationship between the venture capital (VC) industry and SVB transformed the way commercial banks comply with banking regulators while lending and nurturing young tech clients. The book demonstrates why the relationships between investors, start-ups, bankers, lenders, experts, lawyers, regulators, and community leaders are key ingredients for ongoing innovation in the tech industry. The book concludes with the sobering dissection of SVB’s sudden death by ＄142 billion cuts inflicted by tech bros, social media, and the Federal Reserve Bank’s successive interest rate hikes to squash the overheated economy.