On March 9, Fortune CEO Alan Murray and I hosted a lunch for 30 executives in Lake Nona, Fla. We asked for a show of hands: How many felt we’d soon enter a recession? Only a few did.
If we had asked the next day, they might have answered differently. During my short flight home, Silicon Valley Bank imploded: Depositors moved $42 billion out of its accounts in 24 hours, thanks in part to a VC-led Twitter frenzy. That weekend, SVB and another regional player, Signature Bank, collapsed. The biggest reason: They were caught flat-footed as interest rates swiftly jumped over the past year.
