founder diligence after ftx feels personal

see also: Latency Budget · Platform Risk

Every conversation with a potential partner now includes questions about custody, commingled accounts, and tone from the top. FTX taught us that spreadsheets aren’t enough; we now evaluate character like it’s a KPI.

context + claim

The SVB crisis reinforced this shift—depositor trust disappeared overnight (see svb collapse rewrites depositor trust). So now we inspect founders’ personal security habits, liquidity plans, and governance.

signal braid

• Signal: VCs ask for third-party custody statements even in seed rounds.
• Signal: exec hiring includes background checks on personal leverage.
• Noise: conspiracy theories about every founder hide the real diligence work.

my take

I welcome this nosiness. If you handle customer funds, you should expect financial therapy sessions before anyone wires money.

linkage

linkage tree

• tags
  • #finance
  • #trust
  • #2023
• related
  • [[svb collapse rewrites depositor trust]]
  • [[terrausd death spiral wipes out anchor trust]]

ending questions

What level of personal transparency should we expect from founders before trusting them with customer assets?