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- As the South by Southwest tech conference began in Austin on Friday, Silicon Valley Bank failed.
- The annual festival is known for attracting hundreds of startup founders and tech investors.
- Attendees from startupland are privately scrambling to make sense of the news.
As South By Southwest kicked off in earnest on Friday, many attendees were privately panicking.
The annual festival, which hosts thousands of attendees from across the entertainment, politics, business, and tech worlds, began its first day with the news that Silicon Valley Bank had been placed under the control of the FDIC after thousands of customers rushed to pull their money out.