Silicon Valley Was Unstoppable. Now It's Just a House of Cards.

After 48 hours of armchair doomsaying and grand predictions of the chaos to come, Silicon Valley's nightmare was over. Yesterday evening, the Treasury Department managed to curtail the worst of the latest tech implosion: If you kept your money with the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank, you would in fact be getting it back. When the bank--a major lender to the world of venture capital, and a crucial resource for about half of American VC-backed start-ups--suddenly collapsed after a run on deposits late last week, the losses looked staggering. By Friday, more than $200 billion were in limbo--the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. Start-ups that had parked their money with SVB were suddenly unable to pay for basic expenses, and on Twitter, some founders described last-ditch efforts to meet payroll for the coming week.