Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse rattled the technology industry that had been the bank’s backbone, leaving shell-shocked entrepreneurs thankful for the government reprieve that saved their money while they mourned the loss of a place that served as a chummy club of innovation.

“They were the gold standard, it almost seemed weird if you were in tech and didn’t have a Silicon Valley Bank account,” said Stefan Kalb, CEO of Seattle startup Shelf Engine, during a Monday interview as he started the process of transferring millions of dollars to other banks.

The Biden administration’s move guaranteeing all Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits above the insured limit of $250,000 per account resulted in a “palpable sigh of relief” in Israel, where its booming tech sector is “connected with an umbilical cord to Silicon Valley,” said Jon Medved, founder of the Israeli venture capital crowdfunding platform OurCrowd.

But the gratitude for the deposit guarantees that will allow thousands of tech startups to continue to pay their workers and other bills was mixed with moments of reflection among of entrepreneurs and venture capital partners rattled by Silicon Valley Bank’s downfall.

The crisis “has forced every company to reassess their banking arrangements and the companies that they work with,” said Rajeeb Dey, CEO of London-based startup Learnerbly, a platform for workplace learning.

Entrepreneurs who had deposited all their startups’ money in Silicon Valley Bank are now realizing it makes more sense to spread their funds across several institutions, with the biggest banks considered safer harbors. Kalb started off Monday by opening an account at the largest in the U.S., JP Morgan Chase, which has about $2.4 trillion in deposits. That’s 13 times more than the deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest in the U.S.

Bank of America is getting some of the money that Electric Era had deposited at Silicon Valley Bank and the Seattle startup’s CEO Quincy Lee expects having no difficulty finding other candidates to keep the rest of his company’s money as part of its diversification plan.

“Any bank is happy to take a startup’s money,” Lee said.

Even so, there are fears it will be more difficult to finance the inherently risky ideas underlying tech startups that became a specialty of Silicon Valley Bank since its founding over a poker game in 1983, just as the advent of the personal computer and faster microprocessors unleashed more innovation.

Silicon Valley quickly established as the “go-to” spot for venture capitalists looking for financial partners more open to unconventional business proposals than its bigger more established peers who still didn’t have a good grasp of technology.

“They understood startups, they understood venture capital,” said Leah Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Sublime Systems, a company in Somerville, Massachusetts commercializing a process to make low-carbon cement. “They were woven into the fabric of the startup community that I’m part of, so banking with SVB was a no brainer.”

Venture capitalists set up their accounts at Silicon Valley Bank just as the tech industry started its boom, and then advised the entrepreneurs that they funded to do the same.

That cozy relationship came to an end when the bank disclosed a $1.8 billion loss on low-yielding bonds that were purchased before interest rates began to spike upward last year, raising alarms among its financially savvy customer base who used the fruits of technology to spread warnings that turned into a calamitous run on deposits.

Bob Ackerman, founder and managing director of venture funder AllegisCyber Capital, likened last week’s flood of withdrawal demands from Silicon Valley Bank’s to a self-inflicted wound by “a circular firing squad” intent on “shooting your best friend.”

Many of Silicon Valley Bank’s roughly 8,500 employees now find themselves hanging in limbo, too, even though government regulators now overseeing the operations have told them they will be offered jobs at 1.5 times their salaries for 45 days, said Rob McMillan, who had worked there for 32 years.

“We don’t know who’s going to pay us when,” McMillan said. “I think we all missed a paycheck. We don’t know if we have benefits.”

Even though all of Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors are being made whole, its demise is expected to leave a void in the technology sector that may be difficult to fill. In an essay that he posted on his LinkedIn page, prominent venture capitalist Michael Moritz compared Silicon Valley Bank to a “cherished local market where people behind the counters know the names of their customers, have a ready smile but still charge the going price when they sell a cut of meat.”

Silicon Valley Bank is fading away at a time when startups were already having a tougher go at raising money as a downturn in technology stock values and a steady ride in interest rates caused venture capitalists to retrench. The bank often helped fill the financial gaps with one of its specialties — loans known as “venture debt” because it was woven into the funding provided by its venture capitalist customers.

“There’s going to be a lot of great ideas, a lot of great teams that don’t get funding because the barriers to entry are too high or because there are not enough people who are willing to invest,” said William Lin, co-founder of cybersecurity startup Symmetry Systems and a partner at the venture capital firm ForgePoint.

With Silicon Valley Bank gone and venture capitalists pulling in their reins, Lin expects there will be fewer startups getting money to pursue ideas in the same fields of technology. If that happens, he foresees a winnowing of competition that ill eventually make the biggest tech companies even stronger than they already are.

“There’s a real day of reckoning coming in the startup world,” predicted Amit Yoran, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Tenable.

That may be true, but entrepreneurs like Lee and Kalb already feel like they had been through an emotional wringer after spending the weekend worrying that all their hard work would go down a drain if they couldn’t get their money out of Silicon Valley Bank.

“It was like being stuck inside a Doomsday loop,” Lee said.

Even as he focuses on growing Shelf Engine’s business of helping grocers managing their food orders, he vowed not to forget “a very hard lesson.”

“I obviously now know banks aren’t as safe as I used to think they were,” he said.

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Upgrading your lifestyle doesn’t have to mean undergoing a major home renovation. By simply introducing a few technologies around the home, you can boost the style, efficiency and comfort of your living spaces. Consider these five ideas for five areas of your home:

• The Hallway: Why display just one photo when you can rotate several images that include all your favorite people and moments? A digital picture frame allows you to do just that, with many models connecting to apps that allow you to directly share photos to the wall-mounted device, which means you don’t actually have to be at home to do some light redecorating.

• The Home Theater: Still rocking a mercury bulb projector in your home theater? Unfortunately, the cooling fans, filters and toxic mercury bulbs associated with them are inefficient and high-maintenance. While a laser-only light source sounds good on paper, these models tend to be large and costly. Instead, consider upgrading to a laser and LED hybrid light source, such as Casio’s LampFree Projector XJ-A257, which is high-efficiency and structurally smaller, without compromising on brightness. Offering a lifespan of approximately 20,000 hours, the power-saving design of this particular model cuts energy consumption by as much as 40-50 percent, making this an addition to your home theater you can feel good about.

• The Kitchen: Slow cookers have always offered a convenient way to create an amazing meal without too much hands-on attention, but some of todays’ options are taking this concept a step further by connecting to smart technology. Now you can monitor and adjust cooking settings from afar, so that if something unexpected occurs and you get home later than planned, dinner doesn’t suffer for it.

• The Family Room: Whether you’re an aspiring musician or an accomplished pianist, your home can benefit from a digital piano that evokes the luxury of an acoustic grand. One such model is the PX-S3000, which features a sleek, glossy top panel and unibody case that fits any room, décor or mood. Its bright backlit LCD display and touch sensor controls are revealed only when the power button is pressed, leaving only a sleek, clean top panel when powered off. Thanks to integrated Bluetooth audio that lets you connect your device wirelessly; you can play your music through its powerful stereo amplification system.

• The Bathroom: Make stepping out of the shower a luxurious experience with a towel warming drawer, which keeps linens the perfect temperature for maximum comfort. For some easy upgrades with a big impact, consider incorporating the best and brightest tech into your home.

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When it comes to students, there are only two kinds of students. Those that like to study, like to learn new things, and enjoy the whole experience of being in school. They do their homework on time and with diligence. They start their projects early and finish them well ahead of time. Above all, they have developed good study habits that will see them prosper in careers of their choice. Then there are kids like my kids. They are allergic to homework. They consider studying beneath them and spend as little time as possible learning anything new. They spend all of their time playing video games on their cell phones, tablets, computers, Xbox, Playstation, you name it, any kind of gizmo that the tech industry has been kind enough to shove down our throats, they have it, and they use it. Sometimes many of these devices simultaneously.

When it comes to teachers, there are two kinds as well. Those that know how to teach, enjoy teaching even though they rarely have a student worthy of their skills, and they spend time with the students to help them understand different concepts. They have the patience to explain, as often as necessary, how to solve problems, and how to comprehend difficult subjects. Then some teachers mostly end up teaching my kids. Most of them are new graduates, with hardly a year or two of experience. They chose to teach not out of passion, but because they couldn’t decide on anything else. Some end up teaching a subject different from their field of study, like a Biology graduate having to teach Physics. Their favorite tool is Google Chromebook with Google Docs and Google this and that. They think that the best way to teach students is to direct them to a website with a database of problems and let them figure things out for themselves. They expect students, those that don’t even know how to brush their teeth (yes, my kids), to work out complicated concepts like Pythagorean Theorem and Quadratic Equations on their own, using their minds, and using their intelligence, however little as it may be. Talk about being extremely optimistic!

I have to give credit to my kids, though. They have figured out very quickly that, on these websites, each wrong answer is immediately followed by the correct solution and if they repeat their exercises long enough, questions start repeating, and they let the website answer its own questions. They score very high on their homework assignments, almost always an A, unless the teacher has specified that all they need is 80% to pass, then as soon as they hit 80%, they stop. When it comes to exams and quizzes, though, they fail miserably. Why? Because the questions don’t repeat so they have no way to “hack” the answers. The worst part about these computer-based studies is that the teacher never knows where exactly is a student struggling. The student is nothing more than a mere statistic.

Well, the students have nothing to worry about, though. Our schools don’t like to fail any students, because it cuts into the funding that they receive from the State. Schools have to show a high success rate and teachers have devised many ingenious ways of making sure that the students pass. For example, giving a 50% score even if the student does not answer the question in the exam, or making the final exam super easy and worth 500 points, so that each and every student scores very high on the final and everyone miraculously passes the class with flying colors.

Another criterion that is used to determine the amount of funding for the school is attendance. A lot of students miss classes as a fashion statement. Our school district has come up with the idea of Saturday school, where students show up and all they have to do is to spend a few hours playing games or doing nothing in particular. They just have to be present for the roll call and that improves their attendance. Schools get proper funding and everyone lives happily ever after.

I remember my professor used to say that schools have so much knowledge because freshmen bring none with them and graduates take none away when they leave. I never really understood his point until I started working with my kids and saw for myself the state of disarray that our schools seem to be in.

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