Good morning, Broadsheet readers! General Motors is offering cash to employees who will quit, women in broadcasting give a nuanced look back at Barbara Walters’ legacy, and female founders tell us how they are handling the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Happy Equal Pay Day!
– ‘There was no playbook.’ The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—the financial institution that housed the capital of much of the startup ecosystem—wreaked havoc over the weekend. Startup founders were unsure they could access their funds, employees were worried about their next paycheck, and even Etsy sellers were hit as the platform paused payouts. Three female founders told Fortune how they handled the chaos—which eased a bit Sunday, when regulators confirmed that they’d protect all deposits at the bank—and where they go from here.
A text from an investor on Thursday tipped Ariela Safira off to the crisis: Was her startup’s money with SVB? Yes, it was.
The founder and CEO of mental health and wellness startup Real immediately asked her team to open new business accounts, but that couldn’t be done online. She drove to First Republic Bank in Los Angeles to open a new account and tried to wire money to the bank, but SVB’s site kept freezing. Next, she sped to SVB’s corporate address—the closest location. At both banks, Safira encountered mobs of founders. “It was a run on the bank, plain and simple,” she says.
Then, investors started calling Safira to say they would cover any payroll and operating costs. She and her team modeled out scenarios. “What if we didn’t have access to our capital for 30 days? For 60 days? For six months? We had clear conversations with our investors—Kirsten Green, Nicole Quinn, Tory Patterson, Anu Duggal, and Iyah Romm—about what checks they would put in if we needed it to ensure we could take care of our team.”
News Sunday that all deposits were insured brought relief, and the episode left Safira with a sense of gratitude: “I usually believe our [team] can accomplish everything on our own and we will figure it out,” she says, citing the execs who handled this week’s chaos, Real’s VP for people Jenn Coccia, head of communications Jamie Hill, and interim COO Kate Connor. “But being supported by your community is unbelievable.”
Like Safira, Ashley Tyrner, founder and CEO of FarmboxRx, a food delivery nutritional program, learned of SVB’s imminent collapse by text. She was on vacation at the time. “I checked my phone and saw that my COO tried to wire money out of our SVB account. [S]he’d pinged me over and over: ‘SVB’s going under. We have to move our money.’”
The nine-year-old startup had its money with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, First Republic Bank, and SVB. “It was mostly our venture debt with SVB. Still, we weren’t able to get our cash out in time.”
Tyrner credits her “seasoned CFO” for knowing what to do, like sweeping the company’s cash on a regular basis.
“Even though we were in a decent position, I knew I had to address this,” she said. “At minimum, employees are wondering if everything’s OK.
Chloe Songer’s startups, the sustainable retail platform Supercircle and footwear brand Thousand Fell, had “100%” of their funds “in SVB across checking and Money Market Accounts.” She and her team tried to wire money out of SVB early Friday, “but it was held up by the FDIC receivership process.”
“We spent Friday and the weekend shoring up new accounts and refining our financial strategy, including payroll, invoicing, and communications to operating partners.”
“There was no playbook for founders in this scenario,” Songer says, but she knew her team “needed to convey to our investors that there was a strong hand on the wheel and a clear strategy in place.”
She regrets the loss of SVB, especially for her early-stage climate tech company that “need[s] financial partners that are accessible and available—but also flexible with varied financing and banking tools that can help us grow.”
“Now there is a lot of uncertainty on who can fill that void as a financial partner for startups.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Today is Equal Pay Day. The pay gap between women and men has only closed two cents from 2002 to 2022. Last year, women still earned 82 cents for every man's dollar. Black and Hispanic women are further behind white men than white women, while Asian women are the closest to pay parity. Pew Research
- Buyouts. General Motors CEO Mary Barra sent a letter to nearly all 58,000 salaried employees offering to pay them to quit. The company is trying to part ways with employees tactfully as it strives to make its EV arm profitable. Insider
- NYT on the rise. While many major news outlets slash costs, the New York Times Co. is thriving under the leadership of CEO Meredith Kopit Levien. With recent acquisitions such as Wordle, The Athletic, and Wirecutter, the company has grown its subscription base to nearly 11 million today from approximately 7 million in 2020 when Levien started. But tension with The Athletic staff and an ongoing fight with the writer's union could mean trouble and stalled growth in the future. The Information
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Karina Zimerfeld is joining Mars as the new VP of global R&D. Reddit has hired Sarah Rosen as head of content partnerships.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- A complicated legacy. Barbara Walters paved the way for a cohort of the first women on primetime news shows. In the wake of her death last year, 17 female broadcasters talk about working with Walters, who was cutthroat at times, and following in her footsteps. The Cut
- 'Almost real.' Maylis de Kerangal is a French author whose novels take readers into a character's profession. Her immersive research style allows her to take minuscule job settings and write them into works of art. The New Yorker
- Look elsewhere. The expansion of venture capital funding after the international calls for social equity in 2020 and 2021 was followed by a quick contraction. In 2022, the amounts awarded to founders from marginalized communities dwindled. Now leaders in the space are advising women and founders of color to seek funding outside of the VC industry. The Guardian
ON MY RADAR
Masha Gessen on the war against trans rights The New Yorker
'This war made him a monster.' Ukrainian women fear the return of their partners Time
Doug Emhoff wants men to clear the path for more Kamalas Cosmopolitan
PARTING WORDS
"I’m ready to still be in the game, I want to be big, I want to be significant, but it’s gotta look different than it was before."
–Shari Bryan, one of three women featured in a story on how career breaks helped women reset their ambition
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