[napsec]

What exactly do you consider irrelevant about the opening line of the article? I'll quote it here since the comment I responded to was flagged.

> Less than an hour before the California financial regulator closed Silicon Valley Bank’s doors on Friday, short seller Dale Wettlaufer is walking me through their financials, and laying out some metrics he’s been closely eyeballing for months.

This establishes who the short seller is, when the interview is taking place, and makes clear that short seller has come to his position after heavy review of SVB's finances over the course of months. It also makes clear for anyone who's come upon the article without context that SVB was shutdown by regulators and that it their decline was newsworthy before that happened.

> The journalist could have spent a few sentences explaining why and how this short seller is giving an interview, why this bank matters, etc

Do you really think the specifics of how the short seller is giving the interview is more important than establishing why they took a short position? The logistics of an interview seem like the least important aspect of it, but if you disagree I'd love to hear why. That said, the article makes very clear why the bank is important in it's fourth praragraph:

> The bank had long sat at the very heart of the private markets as a lender and banker to some half of the industry’s startup companies—not to mention as a prominent lender to venture funds, private equity funds, and a wealth manager to rich entrepreneurs. The bank has a fund of funds, investing in the likes of Accel or Sequoia Capital, and it invests directly in startups itself. The bank effectively touches every part of the private markets.

Also, why the short seller is giving they interview is pretty obvious if you're able to understand subtext. According to the article Dan Wettlaufer works for Bleecker Street Research which is an investment firm focused on short selling. They just made a huge return on a short play that most people never saw coming. When your organization has an outstanding moment, you publicize it.

[pas]

> They just made a huge return on a short play that most people never saw coming.

Debatable. The amount is not disclosed. Also just in this HN thread there were some talk about how even if someone saw it coming taking the actual position was a bit risky (because borrowing the stock in a high-interest rate env can easily lead to closing the position too soon).

> This establishes who the short seller is, when the interview is taking place, and makes clear that short seller has come to his position after heavy review of SVB's finances over the course of months.

That sentence is too evocative of fluff. (To me. And I'm guessing to other HN commenters too.)

Its style does not match the subject matter, nor the rest of the article. It's too eloquent, too visual, yet imprecise. Were the doors really closed? What does that even mean to today's "terminally online" audience, who read these articles? What's the name of the regulator? Walking through, closely eyeballing for months ... yet in the next paragraphs they mention "last two years". Okay, sure, it's not a "gotcha" or some huge logical contradiction, but it's just unexplained to me as a reader.

All in all, I don't like the pacing, the format, the style, the terrible one sentence paragraphs of this article.

> The bank effectively touches every part of the private markets.

Yeah, but that's like saying buying a lot of SP500 touches every part of public markets. Yes, SVB was big, 209B big, but when the Vision fund is 150B, and VC has more than 2T, and PE has more than 4T assets under management, I'm not sure what to think of this.

To me this article, while has some interesting factoids, comes off as a strange almost personal account of the writer's "oh no one knows what will happen now" emotionally charged state. (Which is okay for a blog, but underwhelming for HN front page.)

[napsec]

> Debatable. The amount is not disclosed. Also just in this HN thread there were some talk about how even if someone saw it coming taking the actual position was a bit risky (because borrowing the stock in a high-interest rate env can easily lead to closing the position too soon).

Regardless of how much money they actually made on the play, they can now openly claim to be the ones who saw this coming. The marketing value to them is distinct from the actual financial return and clearly why they decided to do a public interview with a major financial publication on the subject. And yes, it was obviously a risky even if the position made sense logically, hence the old maxim, "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent". But all of that is irrelevant to the fact that this particular play worked out for them and they can use it to promote themselves. There were people who tried to short mortgage backed securities in the early 2000s and got the timing wrong. Michael Burry got the timing right. At least a part of that was luck, but it hasn't stopped him from using it for self-promotion.

> Its style does not match the subject matter, nor the rest of the article. It's too eloquent, too visual, yet imprecise.

I honestly don't even understand what you're trying to say. Stylistically it seems completely coherent to me, and how can the sentence be "too eloquent"? I also don't see what's imprecise about it. I also have no idea what "too visual" means. Are you referring to terms like walking through and eyeballing? These are very common terms for explaining and tracking respectively and quite clear in context.

> Were the doors really closed? What does that even mean to today's "terminally online" audience, who read these articles?

"close its doors" is a very common idiom [0] meaning to shut down. I have no idea why a "terminally online" audience would be relevant to that fact.

> What's the name of the regulator?

There's only one California financial regulator. They're directly referencing the state entity responsible for regulating financial institutions in California. The official name for that organization is The Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, but it's quite clear who they're talking about based on context.

> closely eyeballing for months ... yet in the next paragraphs they mention "last two years". Okay, sure, it's not a "gotcha" or some huge logical contradiction, but it's just unexplained to me as a reader.

You're taking two referenced timeframes out of context. "Eyeballing for months" is how long Wettlaufer has been tracking the situation. "Last two years" is the amount of time the situation has been unfolding. The author is stating that Wettlaufer has spent the last few months reviewing the last two years of activity. There's nothing inconsistent about that.

> All in all, I don't like the pacing, the format, the style, the terrible one sentence paragraphs of this article.

That's fine if you don't personally like it. We can agree to disagree here. But I objectively I don't think your criticisms land.

> To me this article, while has some interesting factoids, comes off as a strange almost personal account of the writer's "oh no one knows what will happen now" emotionally charged state. (Which is okay for a blog, but underwhelming for HN front page.)

Again, perhaps we're at the point of agree to disagree, but I don't see anything emotional about this article at all and it in no way seems like a personal account. It's a narrative written form a perspective but I think it very clearly lays out a number of facts about the situation.

>> The bank effectively touches every part of the private markets.

>Yeah, but that's like saying buying a lot of SP500 touches every part of public markets. Yes, SVB was big, 209B big, but when the Vision fund is 150B, and VC has more than 2T, and PE has more than 4T assets under management, I'm not sure what to think of this.

You've cherry picked one sentence out of a paragraph. The rest of the paragraph makes very clear why this bank is important and important to start-ups and VCs specifically.

[0] https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/closed+its+doors

[pas]

Thanks for responding!

I'm familiar with the idioms (and there's the picture of people literally standing in front of the HQ), and them being common, I just don't think they are good choices here. Just as I don't think referring to the regulator without naming it is a good practice. It's just too vague.

> But I objectively I don't think your criticisms land.

Fair, matters of style preferences are subjective anyway :)

The reading experience of your comment was much more coherent to me than the article's.

I know it's a strange claim, especially after spending half a page discussing somewhat unfruitfully what's "my beef" with the article.