YouSaid · the spoken record

Greg Becker

lines on the record: 70
first: 2021-08-13
most recent: 2021-08-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Probably the biggest thing, and I think it's hard until you've gone through cycles, is to realize that the challenges they will come up, you'll learn from those challenges, but they're going to be over a lot faster than you think. You get so caught up in how challenging or how big of an issue it is, you'll get past it. So don't stress out as much as you do when those challenges occur. You will get through it. You'll be better off, and things will be okay.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Competing with each other, but that are working together to compete externally to drive a business forward that has always been incredibly motivating, stimulating and inspiring to me. And so I encourage college grads to find that team where they're going to be inspired.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you got took a job and it's easy, you're probably A not working hard enough or B, well, that's probably the main thing. Or you're setting your bar too low, right? You should be thinking about something that's going to stimulate you and challenge you more. So it's not supposed to be easy. So get over it and go back to point number one. Still find joy in what you do. The third one fits into that same vein as well, which is be curious. Again, the most frustrating thing that I see with people when they don't want to understand, when they don't want to ask questions, but they don't want to find out kind of things about how things operate and how things work. And the last part, I would say, is advice I would give is be part of a great team. I know when I look back in the best parts of my career, it has always been being part of a team of people that are not”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You do. You may do it for a long period of time, but it's not forever. And you're going to learn things that are going to be great stimulating, motivating. And so that's number one. The second thing is to realize that it's not supposed to be easy.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kids that are just graduated from college over the last couple years, and I have three kids in college. And so I do spend a lot of time thinking about this and talking about it, whether they take my advice or not, I don't know, but I certainly am happy to share it. So one is I think too many college kids, when they graduate, think that they're going from this place of happiness and joy in college to going to work for the rest of my life and it's going to be miserable. And my biggest piece of advice is if you don't find joy in what you do in your career, right, you got to change your mind around. I know when I first got out, I loved doing what I did because the people I got to meet and the lessons that I learned and understanding how different businesses worked. And to me, that was incredibly exciting and stimulating. So the first thing is find joy in what.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I would just say advice in general, and I'll talk about advice in banking and finance. And first of all, I think it's an incredible career. I think anytime you can really understand how businesses operate and get exposed to a variety of different businesses, the way commercial bankers do, the way investment bankers do, I think that's an incredible skill. It's incredible knowledge to be gained, and it will allow you to be successful, in my view, no matter what you're doing. If you want to stay as a career or if you want to leave that as a career and then go into a business where maybe you're a CFO or you're a finance person, I think all those things are great to learn. I wouldn't say less about lessons on that part. I would say it is a great career. So if you get a chance, you know, go for it, do it. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Advice in general that I give to college grads, and I've got two kids.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bad decisions, small, bad decisions can create something very significant. You know, to me, the war books are about strategy. It's about tactics. It's about human nature and lessons that we can all learn from them. So those are a few of the things that I have read that I like and I've been read recently.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the one I described to our team at the bank for many, many years is this book called The Boys in the Boat. And it's actually timely because of the Olympics being around and it's a setback on the, I want to say the 30s and the 40s. And it was a team up in Seattle. And it was this individual who came from nowhere. And working together as a team in the eight-person skull to win in the Olympics in Germany. And it's about teamwork. It is about the feeling when you're part of a great team how important that is and how impactful it can be. So that's a great book. Other books that I've read recently, the Pacific War 1941 to 1945 and the most recent one, which kind of fits into that same genre is a book called 2034. And it's about a future war between the US and China and how”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's how they feel. And you can't take away how people feel about something. That's what they own. And understanding that and being empathetic to that really allows you to connect with people and in my view is in a very different way. So those are a few of the many mentors that I've had over the years that have really helped shape my career.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What was so important to him was leadership principles, and he taught leadership principles to me, taught leadership principles to the rest of the executive team about casting your shadow on how important that is, about decision making process. All these things that even to this day I think about, maybe not on a daily basis, but I think about on a regular basis. And so clearly he was inspirational. And the last person was a gentleman named Bob Samuels, who was an executive coach of mine for a number of years. I learned a lot from Bob, but the one thing in particular was how important empathy is. How important empathy is to understand clients, how important empathy is to understand the people you work with, understand kind of everyone else. And not faulting people when they have a certain point of view.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's being in financial services as long as I have been and being at SVB for 28 years, a lot of my mentors have been here at SVB and actually one that was even before that. So Mark Varissimo was an individual that managed, I worked with at another bank before I joined Silicon Valley Bank, and he's the individual that brought me over. You know, Mark was great about basically inspiring you to think differently, inspiring you to just”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two things one, Ted Lasso. Love that show. I'm glad it came back for season two. It's just such a great storyline and it's so funny. That's awesome. The second one during COVID, my wife and I and family, we watch a ton of anything David Attenborough, anything David at Attenborough about the earth and climate and its oceans. I mean, the visual part and the just how fortunate we are to have the earth that we have and how we all need to do a better job of protecting it. Those are the two biggest things that we stream.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All those things are, my view is you could say it's being defensive. I don't view it as being defensive. I view it as being on the offense to take care of our clients no matter how big they get, no matter whatever they need from a financial solutions perspective. We want to be there for them. And I think we have to think about that every single day. We can't take our relationships for granted. We have to win those relationships back every single day. And if every employee thinks that way, that's where I think we're going to continue to be the winning solution for these companies.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I look at it this way, Barry. You can take a defensive posture or you can take an offensive posture. We are taking an offensive posture, meaning the way we keep our relationships, the way we continue to do what we're doing is you don't look back and say, what can we hold back from our clients? How do we create more of a moat around them? It is actually you end up doing a better job of providing one-stop shopping, all the products and services. So you go, it's like the reason we did the acquisition of Lyring Partners and we're building out our investment bank is to add more value to our clients. The reason we acquired Boston Private was to add more private banking and wealth management capabilities. The reason we acquired West River Group is to make sure we can lend even greater sums of money and higher risk type of lending to the”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is, and much like we have been healthcare and technology and software and all those industries, we have experts that this is what they do kind of 24 by 7. Our wine group, they're experts in this industry. They really are viewed as being the smartest people in understanding these industries. And that's the way we approach investment banking. That's the way we approach private banking. We want to be the best people, the most knowledgeable people in giving advice in the industries that we serve. And I think the wine group is just another example of that.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what happened is, we kept whittling down what we were really good at until we ended up in the late 90s of technology and life sciences, and we had this one business, premium wines and nap and Sonoma. And it was a really good business. But the other benefit to it is actually its great marketing and its great connectivity. And if relationship building is so important as it is, you can leverage those clients, those winemakers, those relationships, and you can create connectivity across your client base in a really unique way. So we said, it's a great business. It makes the rest of the business better. So let's keep it. And it's been really nice to have. And we host events up in Avin Sonoma, and we help those winery clients sell more of their product to our technology and innovation clients. And so there's a really good match between the two.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, maybe I could claim it's a life science connection because all the health benefits. It's actually historical in the sense when the bank was first formed back in the early 80s, we did some innovation. So whatever technology was back then in the 80s, semiconductor companies and some networking companies. And then we did general commercial industries and real estate. And then we also did some private banking back at that time as well. And so over time, when we were doing commercial industries, we're doing commercial real estate, what we realized is that maybe we weren't as good as we thought we were at it. And so the real estate crisis in the late 80s and the early 90s, we said maybe that's not something we should be doing. But we're pretty good at this technology stuff.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Companies and support them in payments. We support them in warehouse lending when they're trying to do loans themselves to consumers or loans to small business. So we support them in a variety of different ways. And kind of every day that goes by, we're figuring out what's the next thing we can do to support them.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'd say it's both a blessing, and I wouldn't call it a curse, but I would say a blessing and a challenge to be so close to the innovation market in these fintech companies, because you see how fast they grow. You see how fast they adapt. And so there is a paranoid part about that. But I think that helps us as an institution realize that we have to keep pressing ahead, that we have to be bold, that we can't wait for things to happen, that we need to try new things. We have an innovation team. We're investing in new businesses. Maybe it can't be part of our core competency inside SVB, but we can invest in those businesses and provide those solutions to our clients. So I believe it's actually, we can benefit from it and we can benefit from it in a business, but we can also benefit it in supporting our clients because we know we have to innovate. So yeah, we spend a lot of time. We have a national fintech practice. And so we work with many, many, many fintech.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, is one important function, but we believe it's a balance of apprenticeship as well as you can do things remote as well.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Make sense that these other markets are going to still do really well. They're still going to get more innovation jobs, innovation companies in those markets. And so I believe kind of all boats will rise. It's not going to be a zero-sum game the way I think too many people think about. For our business, we do have a lot of interaction. We do have offices all over the country. And so we want to make sure our people are close to those hubs. So when they do come in, that they have access to engaging with our other teammates that allow them to learn and develop and build relationships and all those things. So that's one thing. The second thing is if you are a client-facing individual, you obviously have to be in the market where your clients are. And so that isn't going to change. If your clients are in Northern California, you can't live in Nashville. You can't live in Austin, Texas if your clients are in the Bay Area.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll break that apart to two answers. One is the technology and life science industry, and then I'll just speak for our business. On the tech and life science area, Silicon Valley has been for years people have said, oh, is Silicon Valley going to fall apart? It's expensive. It's all these things are going to be more of a challenge. And other markets are going to pick up the pace and be more competitive. And my view is while other markets are going to do better than they have historically, right? New York and Atlanta and Chicago and Denver and Austin and Seattle are going to continue to do better. It's not going to be at the expense of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley, from my standpoint, will continue to thrive. It will still be, at least for my lifetime, I believe the innovation capital of the world, but innovation is everywhere. And so it...”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think technology companies are definitely more open to hybrid. They're much more open to working remotely. They're more open to being flexible. Part of it is that you have a skill, a contribution that can be made. And if it's computer programmers or sales support or whatever you want to call it, you can be more remote. a business or industry has an apprentice model the more being in person like that's going to be even more important so it depends upon what the needs are of the of the business so technology companies by definition are going to be more more flexible we're we're somewhere in between we're not we're somewhat of an apprentice model we're not a full apprentice model so we can be in that middle ground of not requiring everyone to be back but also not having everybody be flexible wherever they want to work and i think that's going to be the right”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The future work at SVB will be to provide a more flexible work environment where redoing a lot of our offices to create more flexibility. We're allowing more support to have them build their home offices so they can work from home. So I think we're going to have a lot of people that are going to be coming in a few days a week, but the vast majority will not be coming in five days a week. We think it's better for our employees and we think it's better for our clients.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think first it goes back to what I just said, which is you got to take care of your employees first, right? Safety is the most important thing and as much as we want to get back together, we want to socialize, we want to connect, we want to make sure that people are safe. And there isn't enough impact on their families as well. And so we need to be first sensitive to that. So what we're doing right now is we're doing some trials, testing things out, bringing some people back, seeing how it operates, seeing what technology we need to adapt to in this new flexible environment, which we're going to. So we want to make sure that first and foremost our employees are safe. Second part is that they're taking care of our clients. And they've done a great job during the pandemic. No reason to think that it's going to slow down or they won't continue to do a great job for our clients. But it's really the combination of those two things. And so we're doing a lot of surveys, listening to our employees. And what our employees want is they want flexibility.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lot of great feedback from our clients on how supportive we were for them and how important that was to them. And as a CEO, No better feeling than getting those positive comments from your clients that you really took care of them. And the same thing is true with employees. The storm really well. And again, our target market, this innovation economy bounced back so To be in the right space as well.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They needed to do and also take care of their families. That was first and foremost. Thing was taking care of our clients. So when you see a shock like that, About, I don't know what's going to happen next. My crystal ball becomes very cloudy. Don't want to have to deal with my banking partner kind of ringing up the phone or calling her or emailing me saying, hey, your loan, pay back your loan, or we're worried about this. So we give our clients a lot of flexibility in repaying our loans, holding off on making payments, because we said we're in this together. This isn't your fault. You didn't do it. And so we should be working together to solve this problem to get through this Back at that, and A, it was absolutely the right call, and B,”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The simple way to describe it is make sure if you're going to go through something like that, you get a really good team of people. And it starts with that. CEO is making all the calls. No CEO is Just their own thinking, their own decision making process. And so number one, start with a great team, which we had. So as we started to assess the situation, it was About our employees first. About our clients and shareholders while important, always important, want to make that note. Focus on the first two things. And so when we thought about employees, it was how fast we can make sure that we're taking care of them and protecting them. So we went very quickly. Remote perspective, making sure we were supporting them with home office, home technology, capabilities so they could.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From an advertising perspective, I mean, when I think of advertising, that's mostly for. Consumers, consumer brands, and that's not who we are. With companies, we work with venture capitalists. We work at Healthcare space to life science, and where we spend time, and it's really, it's about relationships and making sure we're top of mind with them, we're spending time with those individuals, spending time with the venture capitalists. We're spending time with the entrepreneurs. That's where our teams of people are. And we'll sponsor things. We'll host events. We'll create events around that. But it's not in mainstream. It's becoming more popular. It's becoming more top of mind for individuals. But historically, it has been more low-key to use.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, it's one of the great things about the institution where you can go back and look in history about these amazing iconic companies. At the beginning, and that's just a great thrill to look back at that.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was not here at the time, but I'll tell you. The story that goes along with it. One of our A gentleman named Bill Goes that when the two individuals that formed Cisco started the company, that he had given them a loan and he actually went to their house to actually give them a very, very small loan to help them. So the capital plus that loan got them started. Of many stories in our history books that we like to certainly reference. And I'll give you another story is that one of the first acquisitions, if not the first acquisitions that Cisco did. Of my first clients when I was At SVB called Crescendo. And John Chambers and I, who know each other, we were talking about that story. And it was a great acquisition for them. It was a great client of mine.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is a function of a couple things, right? One is has to be the private company and what they're willing to share. The buyer takes that information and they marry it with any comparables that you can make in the public mark Make assumptions, right? That's why it is more difficult, right? It will not be ever be as. Accessible the way a public market is. That's why it is still a private market. Able to make certain assumptions. So let's say if it's a SaaS enterprise On the industry, the market, where it's going, growth rates, all those things If there won't be Out there that you can make in judgment, that you can make in order to make your assessment whether it's a good investment or not.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You asked me a question earlier We deal with this high loss rate. Remember, I mean, even if they get to a later stage, a series C or D round and they are doing $50, $100 million on revenue, it doesn't mean they may not struggle. It doesn't mean that they may not go out of business. They still may go out of business. So it's a higher risk. You're just trying to give information and accessibility to these private companies so people can participate in it. Institutions and individuals. And that's what's unique about it, and that's what we're excited about.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's so loaded. It just doesn't work that way, right? But it's like when you buy a public stock, when you buy a public stock, you make an assumption about that stock. You believe it has upside and it will go up. Every stock that you invest in Barry, does it always go up? Is every single person?”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It depends sometimes you'll be getting a discount and sometimes the valuation may go the other way, right? It's just when people ask me the question about it almost makes it seem like you're guaranteed to make money because you're investing before a company goes public. And obviously the word guaranteed.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, a lot of the investors will be the same investors, but you can see family offices. You could see some accredited investors participating in that. And so is a big market on both sides. And that's why we were excited to participate in this new joint venture with Nasdaq and the other investment banks.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These sellers are the issuers are really the vast majority of private companies that have raised maybe it's a series C round, D round. So they're more mature. They may be doing 50, 100 million, $200 million in revenue, right? And so they may be two, three, four years away from going public. And those companies, maybe they've been around for eight years, nine years, 10 years. So they want to provide liquidity for early investors or for employees. So there's the issuer side of it. So it's a big market. The issuer side is a big market. On the other side is the buyers, right? So the investors, it'll mostly be the institutional. It'll mostly be the ones who are maybe coming in to invest in these businesses once they become public and they want to participate two or three years earlier while they're still in private.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get any liquidity. And so you have to figure out a way how can you keep these companies private longer to build additional wealth and still provide liquidity to the investors and still provide liquidity to the employees? One way to do it is to create an exchange, an exchange for private company shares. And that's what Nasdaq private market has been doing historically. They've done more than $30 billion of trading in private shares. And what we wanted to do, pulling together this group, so it's NASDAQ, it's ourselves, it's Goldman Morgan, Stanley, and City, is basically a consortium that comes together that all bring something valuable to create in a private exchange that is bigger, bolder, is more accessible to investors on the issuer side and on the investor side. And that's really what this is about. And that's why we're excited to be working together.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me give you a little more context to be able to answer the question better. So the big difference between private companies and public companies is access to information. They are very, very, very, very different as far as what is known about a private company and what's known about a public company. Public companies, you know all the information. We all have access to the same information and knowledge. very small margins on trading and all those things. Private companies by definition, it's more opaque, it's more unknown about their financials and what's going on. So buying and selling private stock, if you could even find some, has been a historical challenge. What happens is companies stay private longer, right? The issue for investors, the issues for the employees that are part of that company, you may have made on paper a lot of money, but you may not be able to”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are non existent. You could be even losing money on your warrants, right? And you could be having a higher write-off rate. So it is more cyclical up and down than people would believe. So you really have to think about this under a long-term strategy.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but Barry, it's a really interesting distinction between equity investing, where you get, you're putting in tens of millions of dollars, you're getting 20-30%, right? When you're lending money, think about it almost like getting a few stock options for the upside. It offsets some of the losses that you will take over time in the portfolio, but it's mainly, it's a small amount of stock. When a company is really successful, though, it can still add up to a lot of money. And so we've seen that, especially last year and this year, the warrant gains that we've had have been substantial. But the reason it's more challenging is that when things are going really well, you have really low credit losses and your warrant gains are also doing really well. It looks really easy. When the market's more challenging, your warrant gains”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the equity investors in that deal, we weren't the only equity. We weren't the only investor. In fact, we were lending money to them. But the equity investors did very well. Don't you get...”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there's the investment piece of these companies, and then there's the lending money to these companies. So the investing piece is you have to have a few winners.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to listen to the CEOs and the C suites in these companies to see where they want to go, where they want to go and what they want to build is truly incredible. And that's incredibly motivating to me. And I know it's incredibly motivating to our team.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Part of companies like an open door, and there is such a long list of companies that you put in that list that I think the biggest challenge for individuals to look at these companies and to really believe in them is to understand what they're going after. And it's very easy to say no. It's very easy to list all the challenges and the reasons that something may not work. It is much more difficult to be that optimistic point of view and to say what if, what if they're successful? What if they're right? What if they actually go after this market? How big could this be? And then understanding, again, who the investors are, understanding the management team and their drive for success, all those things are ingredients that really gives you that view of the potential for that business. And that's what, I mean, honestly, that's the most inspiring part of what I get to do as a CEO, to see these companies, to understand where they're going.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That we give to these companies. And again, I'll go back to what I said. That's the most important, that's the most fun part when you really do believe that you've made a difference in that company”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it is very different, but it is still, again, in that same commentary about helping them be successful. That's what the product set is. That's what the solutions are. That's where all the advice and connection. So we may bring some CFOs together or CEOs together if a company is thinking about going public. Well, let's connect them with other CEOs who have gone through that process so they can get the advice about how to do that. Do you raise money before you go public or do you raise kind of all the money you need when you go public or after you go public? Giving that feedback and that experience to other people going through that same thing, those connections are really, really, really valuable. But other things that are different. How much money you lend to them, the type of money, it's acquisition financing, it could be large acquisition financing. It could be making introductions to PE firms who may want to take them private if they're public already. So it's a whole suite of solutions.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It makes sense that when you have teams of people at SVB, that this is all they do, work with companies that are in the healthcare industry, biotech companies, or medical devices or software or cyber software, that if they do that all day long and the next cybersecurity software walks in the door, their ability to point them in the right direction, to make interactions or engagements or connections, that makes such a huge difference. And so we just have to keep thinking about that every single day. And that's differentiating. And it's also what's really a lot of fun. If you believe you have helped a company, you go home at night, you feel pretty darn good that you've made a difference in a company that's changing something significant in the world.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I definitely don't like the description cornered because that implies in some ways that there isn't competition and you don't have to wake up every day in kind of Andrew Groves quote, only the paranoids survive, which is something we certainly adhered to. It starts with really being relentlessly focused on helping these companies at all stages, figuring out what are the keys to their success. What I always talk to our team about, it's that one piece of advice. It's that one connection. It's that one piece of help that can make the difference between a company being successful and not being successful. And you have to think about that every single day as you engage with and you work with our clients.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so our strategy is bring them in early and support them all throughout their life cycle as they get larger and larger. That's in a nutshell. That's what our strategy is. And to do it not just in the US, but to do it globally, to do it in the UK, to do it in Europe, to do it in China, to do it in Canada. And that's what we get to do, work with the most innovative, the coolest companies in the entire world.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source