At SXSW: Bank failure? What bank failure? - POLITICO

The first was Do Kwon, the Terra/Luna mogul who canceled his talk abruptly at a Web3 conference last year. Now it's Silicon Valley Bank executive Rochelle Stewart, who didn't appear here at SXSW in Austin on Monday for a scheduled "mentor session" (the link now produces a 404 error) on entrepreneurship and business development. Which is understandable, considering the bank's sudden collapse over the weekend is the biggest U.S. financial disaster since the 2008 crisis. The Silicon Valley Bank saga might seem at first like a pure finance story, an update of 2008 for the Uber-for-everything startup era. But that update is exactly why it's something much bigger: It is a cold-water reminder that the sprawling ecosystem of startups working on blockchain, AI and virtual-reality tech (among other things) isn't just driven by pure intellect and ambition.