Your head, like mine, was probably spinning. Signature Bank had gone under. Silicon Valley Bank’s finances were in disarray, then their depositors panicked — and ran. All of a sudden we were being told the second largest bank failure in American history had just unfolded. Talking heads were speculating about broader financial contagion, and pundits were pointing fingers at venture capitalists, or regulators, or whoever else they wanted to blame for the disaster. Was it 2008 all over again? Did the government just bail out the banks? Did executives profit off of insider trading ahead of the worst financial crisis for over a decade? Were we all about to get swallowed up by a deep recession birthed by a greedy, irresponsible, corrupt elite?

You knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep, but it was late — or, early, really — and even bleary eyed doomscrollers have to hit the sack eventually. So you got in bed, laid your head on the pillow, and allowed yourself just a few minutes of mindless TikTok content to distract from the chaos. It wasn’t helping. And that’s when a dark-haired, serious-looking man appeared on your screen. He seemed to be staring calmly into your soul. Over his chest was a black box with white letters that read: “Stopping a bank run.” The room was dark, and for the first time all day, your mind fell silent. It was just you and the man on your screen. He started speaking:

It’s about 2:00 a.m., and I just wanted to bring you up to speed on everything that’s happened tonight, because you’re probably seeing a lot of headlines right now.