“Stay calm.”

That’s what Silicon Valley bank CEO Greg Baker told clients Thursday morning in a hastily convened conference call to reassure them that the Santa Clara institution was confident it would face a liquidity crunch.

By the end of the day, when prominent venture capital firms urged their portfolio companies to get their money out, the bank had seen $42 billion in withdrawals. It was a full-blown bank run, a coup against one of the tech industry’s central foundations sparked by some of its strongest backers. The second largest banking failure in US history after the collapse Washington Mutual In 2008 it raised the specter of widespread layoffs in start-up companies and broader instability in the US financial system.

The tech company’s founder, Sarah Moskoff, was almost certainly a part of this rush for exits. By the time she tried to transfer a small amount of money from her account on Thursday, the bank had closed for the day. The deal was pending on Friday morning, when the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation close svb and placed its assets into receivership with Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“I didn’t expect it at all,” Moscov said.

Countless companies across the country have finances intertwined with SVB in some way, including loans and cash sweep accounts. The bank, which caters to technology, venture capital and private equity firms, had about $209 billion in assets at the end of last year, according to the Federal Reserve, making it the 16th largest in the United States.

Now those companies must wait anxiously to see if and when they will be able to get a refund of the more than $250,000 that the FDIC guarantees, a scenario that could require more government intervention.

Mauskopf, the founder of babysitting startup Winnie, said she has dealt with SVB since founding her company in 2016. She is unable to access the funds needed to operate her business, including setting up payroll.

“When you can’t guarantee that employees will get paid on time, it really affects people,” Moskov said.

Even companies that do not directly bank SVB can face employee pay hurdles as a result of their failure. Human resource management firm Rippling used the bank to operate its payroll services, CEO Parker Conrad writes Twitter. Conrad said he has since switched to JPMorgan Chase & Co., but that payments that began earlier in the week could be delayed.

SVB’s problems stem from a sharp rise in interest rates that began last year and has undermined the profitability of its huge bond position. The acute phase of its crisis began on Wednesday when it sold a large portion of its securities at a loss of about $1.8 billion after taxes to make sure it could cover deposit withdrawals and start raising $2.25 billion in capital. As stocks fell in response to the news, clients smelled the scent of financial weakness and began withdrawing their funds to avoid being trapped in losses.

The FDIC said all depositors will have full access to their insured deposits no later than Monday. But only 12.5% ​​of its $173.1 billion in deposits are insured through the end of 2022, according to the bank’s annual report.

Jessica Mah, who founded the accounting software company DeNiro, said she has several clients with SVB accounts, including one with no more than $100 million in deposits there. Mah said some business owners personally consider payroll financing if they don’t have access to the capital by then.

Uninsured depositors will receive a custodial certificate for the remaining amount of their uninsured funds, which may be repaid in the future as the FDIC liquidates SVB assets.

It is possible that the federal government, worried about possible infection of other banks, will step in before then to guarantee all SVB deposits. Mauskopf said it was not a matter of whether he was a “rich capitalist”. [venture capital] Money is worth some sort of bailout,” but about whether companies can pay their bills with the money they’ve earned.

“I just want to make sure people understand that this has a real impact on real people who aren’t wealthy,” she said.

Some of the financial services companies that cater to startups, including Stripe and Brex, provide funds to companies like Mauskopf’s.

Mauskopf said Brex is offering an emergency bridge line of credit to SVB clients funded by third-party equity, and Stripe is offering a cash advance on future revenue.

One Los Angeles-based tech founder said he wasted no time moving money out of SVB once he heard about the stock plunge and was able to recover 85% of his company’s money, even though his company still had several million dollars left in SVB.

He also invests in startups through AngelList, a major platform for launching investment funds. Because AngelList banks with SVB, the capital he has through him is also frozen.

While many observers agree that SVB would likely have been able to weather its liquidity crisis had customers not attempted to withdraw deposits all at once, the tech founder said there was no incentive for people to show patience.

“There’s no reason to keep your money there because the downside risk, even if it’s 0.1%… is that you lose all your money,” he said. “I just don’t want to be a part of the last standing.”

William Hsu is the co-founder of Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Mucker Capital, which has hundreds of companies in its banking portfolio with SVB. Hsu said he worries about the potential repercussions of the bank’s collapse for all areas of venture capital, technology and startups in the coming weeks and months.

“I’m very worried about my portfolio companies and how they’re going to make payroll. I’m very worried about the employees that work for my company,” he said.

There are also legal ramifications for not paying employees, which can lead to mass layoffs because companies inadvertently let workers go.

Hsu is looking for other non-SVB-related sources of capital to connect his companies to the next payroll.

Hsu said Friday’s events are likely to paralyze the venture industry for months as the companies that back it struggle to stay afloat.

“That’s a lot of capital that stops coming into the economy,” he said.

Times staff writer Lindsey Blakely contributed to this report.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, describes how Du, then a high school student who was not yet gay, downloaded Grindr in order to befriend other underage boys. He then exchanged explicit photos and messages with the four adult men, who raped her in their homes or in parks, according to the complaint.

After the teen testified at their criminal trials, three of the four men were subsequently convicted of sexual intercourse with a child and jailed for periods ranging from 24 to 54 months, per the lawsuit. The fourth has not been located.

It accuses the company of knowing its product facilitates child rape, and the suit equates Grindr with other organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church that have “turned a blind eye to the systematic exploitation of pedophilia.”

Grindr is accused of marketing to children by virtue of maintaining accounts on Instagram and TikTok, the social media platforms where many brands — from other dating apps to alcohol companies — also have accounts.

The lawsuit also highlights two TikTok videos, which have since been removed by Grindr, in which adult content creators pretend to be students outside a high school or in a physical education class. The lawsuit alleges that the latter “explicitly occurs in an elementary school, middle school, or high school setting.”

“Through this TikTok video, Grindr is directly marketing to children and targeting them with messages implying that Grindr should be used in school, and that it should be used by children,” the suit states.

Grindr’s TikTok accountwhich has more than 138,000 followers, is routinely taken over by adult content creators who post videos on behalf of the company.

The lawsuit alleges that Grindr could have prevented Doe’s abuse by employing a third-party age-verification service, requiring government-issued ID to use the app, or blocking its use in schools, among other things.

Apple, Google and the entire tech industry need to work together to develop better age-gate technology that also respects user privacy, said Lenihan, a Grindr spokesperson.

Doe is suing Grindr for defective design, defective manufacturing, defect warning, negligence, and negligent misrepresentation. He is also filing a civil suit Under a section of US law dealing with human trafficking.

Prominent members of Mexican drug cartels use Twitter to recruit new members, send warnings to rival gangs, post gory photos and videos, and glorify the drug lifestyle. Some of these accounts were banned by Twitter’s security team between 2012 and 2015, but have been reinstated since Elon Musk bought the company last year.

These are the conclusions of a New report It was released Thursday by the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, a coalition of organizations that research online crimes including drug trafficking, pedophilia, and romance fraud. Now, ACCO is demanding that Twitter ban and remove drug content and suspend accounts that post it again.

The group’s report comes days after the Gulf Cartel in Mexico killing Two of the four US citizens were kidnapped after the Americans crossed the border. On Thursday, the cartel It said He apologized for his actions.

“Social media is a tool that provides benefits to drug cartels and strengthens them by strengthening organizational and operational capabilities,” report author Dr. Nilda Garcia, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M International University, told BuzzFeed News. “These communication outlets provide ample opportunities for drug cartels to not only engage in PR strategies, gain legitimacy, incite fear, and recruit, but also facilitate diversification of criminal activities that include extortion, online drug selling, and human trafficking.”

Some of the cartel images appear to violate Twitter’s policies on violent content. One video posted by a member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, headed by Nemesio Oseguera, one of the world’s most wanted drug lords, shows the decapitated heads of rival cartel members being thrown into a bonfire. Another tweet posted by a member of La Chabiza, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, shows a victim being flayed.

Under Musk’s leadership, the report said, Twitter’s efforts to remove such content and ban these accounts have slowed. According to the report, some of Musk’s actions — such as firing more than 70% of Twitter’s employees, including content moderators responsible for keeping the platform secure — have made the problem worse.

“Twitter should not provide a platform for Mexican cartel members to spread hate and incite violence,” ACCO CEO Gretchen Peters told BuzzFeed News in an interview. “We ask them to study the problem and examine this issue more closely.”

Twitter, which reportedly does not have a press section anymore, did not respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.

Extremists and other bad actors have thrived under Musk’s leadership, with thousands of previously banned accounts reinstated, including those of far-right figures like Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, and former Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon. Earlier this year, Twitter sparked outrage after him Permissible Taliban members to purchase blue check marks for their accounts. (Twitter Removal Check marks from these accounts shortly thereafter.)

Unlike the Taliban, drug cartel members have not yet purchased blue checks, according to the report’s findings. García said she suspects this is because gang members do not want to attract more attention and may be dropped from service again. “Social media use can be a double-edged sword,” she said. “They learned how not to be weak, not to attract too much attention from the authorities.”

Since the accounts of the cartels have not been officially verified, determining their authenticity has been challenging. Garcia said she looked for signs of links to other cartel accounts to determine if the accounts were legitimate. It also checked the geographical location of the accounts in question.

author a book named Mexico’s Drug War and Criminal Networks: The Dark Side of Social MediaGarcia, an expert on the Sinaloa Cartel, who said it has a strong presence on Twitter. It has been estimated that on the platform the cartel has reached more than 140 million people from nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico. “They have a massive fan base,” she said.