We are not a portfolio management company. We aren't here to manage investments, we are here to build something of value: our startup. The money that is invested in us is best spent on _us_. They view us as a good investment, and we view ourselves as the best possible return on our time and money. We are all on in our venture and our outcome is either 0 or 1, we are going to be the 1, so every dollar we get is best invested in ourselves and not [X]. No other investment will yield the same return as our outcome if the promises we've made to ourselves and our investors hold true.

So they park their money in a bank account, use that to calculate runway, and treat that runway as an ongoing investment in their startup. The bank losing their runway wasn't really a substantial risk compared to the other existential risks a startup faces on a daily basis - at least not until last week.

Is it common practice for other banks to insure deposits more than what SVB? I keep hearing the 'how could they not have insured X% of their accounts'. That question adds to the hysteria if most banks wouldn't hold insurance if they had those clients. There isn't a lot of reporting separating whether SVB was underinsured or whether the only difference is that other banks have a lot of individual depositors vs catering for businesses.