17th
Big bank shareholders’ financial pain (via The 5 myths of the great financial meltdown - The Term Sheet: Fortune’s deals blog Term Sheet)
So when we first started thinking about raising capital in 2007/08 for what was to become @anthemis, a common refrain was: “we like what you are doing, think it makes a lot of sense BUT it probably a bit too risky for us…”
All of these people (individuals and institutions) had significant exposures to “less-risky” publicly traded financial institutions.Â
One of the things I learned in 16 years of investment banking was that risk management is a relative thing; low risk doesn’t mean low risk of loss of capital, it means low risk of loss of face/job. ie It’s ok to run off the edge of a cliff, just so long as you are in a herd.
Call me crazy, but I’d rather be lonely rather than be in a pile of bodies at the bottom of a ravine…
