Good Morning!

Happy Friday Byters! 🍺 🍻 🍺 We got a text-heavy post today but bear with me.

Today’s article is brought to you by: 95% human and 5% AI 

Market Update

📉 Markets dropped Thursday as new data shows jobless claims rose slower than expected. Jobless claims still sit around pre-pandemic averages at ~220K, despite seemingly constant layoffs from large companies.

🔴 🏦 Silicon valley Bank fell 60% after the company reported massive losses and declining customer deposits. More below.

Banger Tweet of the Day

And on this day, everyone became a Bank expert.

Tech’s Favorite Bank Had A Bad Day

Shares of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) fell over 60% Thursday after the company reported declining customer deposits, a new round of equity fundraising, and large losses from its asset sale.

The High-Level in 5 Steps:

1. As the banker-of-choice for tech startups, SVB enjoyed the tech bubble as much as the VC’s and startups. Customer deposits rose from $64 billion in 2019 to $190 billion in 2021.

2. SVB used those deposits to buy boring old bonds at the absolute top of the market. They are now facing significant losses as those bonds are worth much less in today’s higher-rate market.

3. The bank is now raising $1.75 billion of dilutive equity to backstop the losses from rolling over its bond portfolio.

4. On top of the bond losses and dilutive equity raise, its clients, mostly VC-backed startups, aren’t slowing down their cash burn. This means less cash for SVB to lend & earn off.

5. The cascading of bad news caused Moody’s to downgrade the company’s credit rating, and is scaring some clients out of their accounts.

Run on the Bank?: The massive drop led to many investors & founders concerned about the safety of their moola. Some are pulling their money out, many more seem to be staying loyal.

• Peter Thiel, founder of VC firm Founder’s fund, advised his portfolio companies to pull their money from SVB, stating there’s no downside to moving, even if the probability is miniscule.

• The problem is, this is exactly how a run on the bank starts. SVB and its clients should be fine, but humans do a great job of panicking themselves into trouble.

CEO Response: To help quell customer fears, SVB CEO Greg Becker said they have “ample liquidity” and advised clients to “stay calm”. Gee, Thanks Eric!

Business Bytes

🏦 Crypto-focused bank Silvergate is shutting operations after market meldown (CNBC)

• Tough day for banks dear lord.

• SIlvergate was one of two primary banks for crypto companies , the company plans to repay deposits to clients in full.

🤠 Elon Musk is Planning a Texas Utopa — His Own Town (WSJ)

• Chief Twit is planning to build his own town outside of Austin next to existing SpaceX and Boring faciities.

🍎 Apple launches its new classic music streaming app (Techcrunch)

• Classical music will be the theme music for the incoming tech/AI renaisssance

• I mean I get it - there’s a real audience for it and it is hard to get quality audio for old music. Still sounds funny.

🙏 Germany Church Shooting Leaves Several Dead (WSJ)

• The shooting took place at a Jehovah Witness center in Hamburg, Germany.

• Mass shootings are rare for Germany where gun ownership is heavily restricted.

• Early investigations believe the shooter is amongst the dead, and no motive has been determined yet.

Testing ChatGPT’s Copywriting Skills

Some guy on the the internet tested chatGPT’s copy skills to find out what works best for getting a head start on copywriting.

Q: Does telling chatGPT that its a skiller writer help?

A: For writing short copy, this prompt works well. Telling chatGPT that its a “skilled copywriter” tends to output shorter, more direct responses. See the examples below.

Conclusion: chatGPT can be a great starting point for writing micro-copy. Don’t rely on the “skilled copywriter” trick too much, instead try several approaches and see what works best for what you’re trying to accomplish.

ChatGPT is Coming to Slack

The salesforce-owned communication platform recently announced their new AI-powered feature.

What’s she do: Those with access to the feature can use AI to draft replies to colleagues, rather than typing out the replies themselves.

The AI bot will also better help you find answers on any topic using natural language - summarize channels or threads, find old projects, etc.

Next step is we talk to our computers to give instruction, after that is connecting our brain to the cloud. anyways…

Today’s Challenge: Go buy a share or two of SVB stock ($SIVB) in support. s/o ejack.

Thanks for reading, go out and make today a great one.

Much Love,

Andrew (and AI)