Sacks was warning that, as a result of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, “maybe thousands” of small venture‑backed startups could be wiped out because they would lose access to their deposits and be unable to make payroll.

What actually happened:

• On March 12, 2023 (the day after the episode dropped), the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC invoked a systemic risk exception and explicitly guaranteed that all SVB depositors – insured and uninsured – would be fully protected, with access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. (fdic.gov)
• SVB’s operations were transferred into a bridge bank and then sold to First Citizens, with deposits assumed and branches reopened, so customers (including startups) could continue banking. (en.wikipedia.org)
• In the UK, HSBC bought Silicon Valley Bank UK for £1 in a government‑brokered rescue that explicitly aimed to avert an “existential threat” to the UK tech sector and allowed SVB UK customers to “continue to bank as usual,” again preventing mass failures of otherwise viable startups. (legaltechnology.com)
• Contemporaneous analysis from within the startup ecosystem itself described the situation as an “extinction level disruption” that would have pushed thousands of companies over the edge if deposits remained frozen for weeks or months, but noted that “disaster was averted when the gov’t came in … by guaranteeing depositors their money.” (adamant.beehiiv.com)

While many startups have since failed amid higher interest rates and a broad venture funding downturn, those failures are part of a wider macro/VC cycle. Available reporting attributes the SVB episode to temporary hardship and financing headwinds, not to thousands of startups being randomly wiped out solely because their SVB deposits disappeared. Given the scale of coverage around SVB, such a mass, direct wipeout would almost certainly be documented, and it is consistently described instead as a near‑miss scenario.

Therefore, as a prediction about what would happen ("thousands" of otherwise sound venture‑backed startups being wiped out as a consequence of the SVB failure), it did not come true.