A male Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. supervisor in San Francisco invited employees to a strip club. A supervisor in Denver had sex with his employee, told other employees about it and pressed her to drink whiskey during work. Senior bank examiners texted female employees photos of their penises.

When federal regulators stepped in to backstop all of Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits, they saved thousands of small tech startups and prevented what could have been a catastrophic blow to a sector that relied heavily on the lender.