What was the significance, what is the current significance, of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in March of this year? For a few nervous weeks thereafter, it appeared that this might be the spark that sets off the forest fire, the catalyst for a 2008 style banking crisis. But with four months between that moment and our own, we can say with some safety that that was NOT the case. One ripple, though, was this: the failure of SVB had a rather severe impact on the west coast venture-capital world which SVB and its parent company, SVB Financial Group, served. The bank and its parent and sister entities were founded precisely to serve that world. Yet the broader economy survived. I do believe that venture capitalists serve valuable economic functions. But they are not day-to-day functions, and the rest of the system can get along without them for a time. The VC spending in the United States fell by half in the second quarter of 2023, largely due to the absence of ...