Did DEI Die in Silicon Valley? How the Collapse of SVB Fuelled a Global Backlash And Why We Need DEI 2.0

Tech has always been obsessed with failure, but some failures reveal more about us than the systems that break. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t just a financial shock; it was a stress test of our cultural fault lines. In the hours after the bank run began, before regulators stepped in, one narrative spread faster than the balance-sheet data: that diversity, equity and inclusion had somehow killed a 40-year institution. It didn’t. But the speed with which the myth travelled exposed something bigger about who gets blamed when systems crack and why the next era of inclusion needs a different architecture entirely.