SVB Employee Who Lost $1 Million In Equity Awards Recounts The Harrowing And 'Crazy' Moment Bank Collapsed: 'There Was Shock'

Employees at the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank have gone through harrowing experiences in the wake of its collapse, and one recently recounted the mental trauma they went through the day the bank failed.

Nervous Early Days: Communication from SVB’s management both to clients and the employees was dismal at first, the anonymous employee told Business Insider in a piece that was published on Saturday. Staff apparently struggled to understand what was happening to them and what they should be telling the clients, all of whom had made frantic calls to the bank.

“Nobody could get any money out. We were on the front line,” the employee recalled.

The only SVB office that reportedly remained open was the one in Palo Alto, California, where department heads sat down with officials from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to hash things out.

The employee also told Business Insider their team only found out about the FDIC takeover during an internal team call, when it was on the news. “We had no way to get ourselves ready — they kept us in the dark. So there was shock, and some tears, as well,” the employee said.

Biggest Frustration: The employee said that the biggest frustration was not being told by management what to tell clients amid the collapse. Instead of asking about their future with the bank, how they would pay off their own homes or how would they fund their kids’ college education, the bank's employees were more concerned about their clients, the employee said. 

"I ate one bagel each day, and slept for maybe two or three hours each night,” they recalled. 

Read Also: How To Invest In Startups

Post FDIC Takeover: The anonymous employee said that the weekend after the FDIC takeover "was crazy." After getting a list of 13 venture capital firms that said they would sign a statement of support of the bank, SVB staff "spent a whole weekend on the phone, email, chat or sort of way to get in touch with the VC firms, partners of the VC firms, operating partners, CFOs, anybody we could to try and get them to rally" for the bank.

To date, the bank has the support of 630 entities, the employee noted. 

The employee also said that, once news of the Federal Reserve's agreement to backstop deposits broke, there was a huge sigh of relief among the bank's clients, who were concerned about making payroll.

The employee also shared some appreciation for the bank's clients, claiming to not yet have "a single frustrated or irate call with a customer." 

“The secret sauce of SVB has always been the people,” the employee said, adding that the clients have been getting "the red-carpet, silver-platter treatment at SVB." 

Emerging From Shock: In the weeks since SVB's collapse, the employee shared that things are slowly settling down. 

“I was finally able to get a good night's sleep. I ate some actual food. I went to an event and ate a full lunch — falafel, chicken shawarma,” they said. "I'd been eating nothing but bagels for days. No one was eating those first few days — higher-ups had to remind us to keep eating.”

Still, the employee admitted that many staff members, who had gotten more than 50% of salaries in equity awards, have lost a lot. The employee said they personally had lost more than $1 million in equity awards due to the stock’s plunge and subsequent delisting.

Read Next: Collapsed Silicon Valley Bank Gets Two Suitors After Being On The Block For Weeks: Report

Photo: Shutterstock