Could remote work be part of the blame for Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse?

The stories about Silicon Valley Bank pour forth, and now take a turn to explain what went wrong. One example is the Financial Times, which profiled the failed bank’s culture and how it might have led things astray.

One problem was there was too much emphasis on working from home, the piece said. Indeed, SVB warned in its annual report that it “may experience negative effects of a prolonged work-from-home arrangement as well as our implementation of a broader plan to return to the office.”

It was a point picked up by other publications as well, such as Axios, which wrote “Whether remote work led directly to a bank failure, or whether poorly-managed remote work was simply a sign of bigger problems at the company, we may never know. Either way, what happened at SVB will likely enter the broader debate about returning to the office.”