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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“Yeah, so I'll weave it into our strategy overall because I think it's helpful in context. Our strategy is we want to bring companies in that are just getting started. So think about like the top of the funnel. You want to bring in thousands of new companies each year new companies that are being formed. And we're talking about six, seven, eight, nine thousand new companies per year. We support them with banking services, getting them off the ground, give them advice, making connections to investors, making connections to other service providers. And then we tailor our products to them as they raise their first round of venture capital financing, their second round of venture capital to financing. We're lending them money in unique ways. Venture debt could be acquisition financing. And then we support them with even greater capabilities as they go international and they go public and they're doing hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, we are a commercial bank predominantly, and that means that we work with companies. So companies, again, it's the startups that are being funded by families and friends. People have ideas and they're raising $50,000, $100,000, and they're starting a business. But they're starting a business that is in software or the internet or in e-commerce. It's in those industries that we support, and that's the business side of it. And we grow with them as they get larger and larger, and hopefully they go public, they get larger on a NASDAQ, or they get listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That's our model. So we don't have tellers, we don't have branches because so much of this can be done virtually. And so when, again, it helps, when you have a tragedy like the pandemic occurring, we can still operate exactly as we had operated historically.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not much of a difference overall. We have a holding company, and that's the financial group. And understand the holding company, we have activities such as investment banking and some of the investing that we do in venture capital firms and in technology and life science companies. That's done at our holding company. And then the bank itself, Silicon Valley Bank, is 90% of what we do as far as the publicly traded company. So they're very similar. It's just what activities fit in which business.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are so much larger in scale, right? It would be companies would be building software for industries or for companies to sell to industries. And now they're building software to attack in completely disrupt entire industries. And you can see that in hotels, in taxis, in all the different industries. So the size of the market's much bigger. So I look at this and say, $180 billion in the first half of the year is a big number. I don't want to mistake that. In the whole scheme of global money, it's still pretty small. So my view is there's the liquidity is actually okay given the size of the market.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And technology is in every part of what our daily lives are all about. I would argue when you think about the pandemic and our ability to get through this pandemic is a function of technology. If so, the Zoom of the world and our ability to work remotely in all the different technologies that supported that. But it's also think about the healthcare, the vaccines, and how rapidly they came to market with Moderna and others is because money was put into these companies in prior years. So the size of the market is much, much, much bigger. That's number one. Number two, the markets these companies are going after.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you go back and think about 2000, I would first argue the size of the market that companies are going after is probably, I would historically say 10 times bigger. I would actually say it's more like 50, 60, 70 times bigger than the market was back then.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not one of those people, Barry, that says that there is too much liquidity out there. And let me explain why. There's a few reasons. One is people look back to 2000. I get that question a fair amount. Why help me understand why this isn't just a repeat of 2000?”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the highest amount historically up until the last couple years was $100 billion invested in 2000. It dropped off dramatically and then it kind of worked its way back up and then dropped again in the financial crisis. And since the financial crisis, it's gone, you know, went from the $25 billion in the US and has been on this steady increase in the last few years has been truly incredible in comparison. Last year was $160, $170 billion. And this year already, the first half of the year has been $180 billion in the first half.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, in the financial crisis, when I think about what happened, we were impacted by it. And so we really were worried about how deep this was going to be and how long it was going to last. And so we started, we raised capital. We did a lot of things to be as protected as we could if this was going to last quite a long period of time. But again, what we were surprised by, I was surprised, by how fast investing in the innovation market picked up, how fast venture capital came back. And so we were bottoming out venture capital on an annual basis was down in that kind of 20 billion, $25 billion per year. It dropped pretty significantly to that level.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It took a while, I would say in 2003, 2004, 2005, it was not one thing, it was really a gradual year by year it kind of picked up. And I contrast that versus the financial crisis in 08-09 in the innovation space there was really only a couple quarters where it took a pretty steep drop and then it basically rapidly increased. So 2010, 2011, it was a much more steeration than it was back in 2002 and 2003. So I don't think people realized that if they looked back at that time period that it was actually a better time to be investing. And so people invested more aggressively in the innovation space back in, again, 2010 and 2011. And I think that was a good lesson.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My best relationships in the venture capital community were formed back in that time period, working through difficult situations because you had to. You had to work together to solve these problems. And it ended up being great for my career, ended up being great for the institution. When did you see optimism start to return?”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not surprisingly very light. And at those high levels didn't take a lot to send that boulder down the hill. So that turned out as difficult a period as it was. That turned out to be very formative. I don't know if that's the right word, but certainly valuable for the bank in its relationships with all the various players in Silicon Valley. It's the entrepreneurs, it's the VCs, who else is in that ecology that you had to deal with? Yeah, it's all the professional service providers in the innovation business. So it's the lawyers, it's the accountants, and it's really during the difficult times is when you build your reputation. And that reputation then is what's going to carry you through that next leg of growth. I don't want to go back to it. I can't say during the middle of it, it was enjoyable, but again, I do look back and say we learned so much. And the relationships still to this day are still, I look back and some of them.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Baron's article featured Howard Marks and was titled Amazon. Is that the, like January 2000? I couldn't remember what month it was. I thought it was March. Well, March was when the pre-announcements began. I don't remember if it was Intel or Dell. Y2K pulled a lot of tech purchases forward. So the first quarter was...”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything was going well to everything was going poorly. And what was fascinating about that time, you know, it's actually my view. It's the time when you built the best relationships. Going through difficult times with venture capitalists and with companies, you found out who you were as an institution. And so as much as I don't want to ever go back to that time period, there were a lot of good lessons learned at that time period. But yeah, we took losses. It was a challenging time for us. It took us a few years to get back into what I'll call a nice growth mode back in that kind of 2003, 2004. But I look back at it fondly. I learned a lot about the institution. I learned a lot about how to lend money. And I learned a lot about how to build relationships at that time period. And if I remember correctly, the...”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Capability that we've learned to do it really well, and both safely, but also in a way that it's hard for other people to do it. So you're there in the 90s. That was quite an exciting period when everything was just going up, up, up. How did you handle the other side of that when the dot-coms imploded? What was the bank doing? How bad were losses and how did you manage them? Yeah, so when I think back at that 99, 2000, 2001 time period, it was such an interesting time, and I described it as the highest of highest and the lowest of lows. In 1999 in the beginning of 2000, everything was going well. Everything was going well with our companies. They were growing so fast. They were getting started and going public within a few years. There was just such a euphoria at that time period. And then very quickly, kind of March of that year, there was the Baron's article that came out. And all of a sudden, everything changed. And it went from...”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do you go about vetting a loan to a company that is brand new, is a startup, doesn't have a long financial history? How does that process differ than traditional bank lending? Yeah, well, it's changed a lot in 28 years. So when you think about it, way back when I first started, the loans were much smaller. There was not as many choices for these companies. It was really lending money in a very, I'll call it more conservative way than we do today and venture capital. Those are the two ways that companies were financed. And then today, when you think about it, it's all about capital debt, lending money. It's about venture capital from all different sources. And so how you go about lending money to these companies is it's really about pattern recognition. It's about understanding who the investors are. It's understanding what market they're in. There's a whole series of things that we do, but we've been doing it for so long and adapting this lending.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Support those companies in those industries. So it's about innovation companies all around the world. We start with them very early. We support them with commercial banking, private banking, investment banking, and asset management. So all those things fit together to help these innovation clients. So you've been with the bank since 93. What was your first role there? How did you arrive at Silicon Valley Bank? Yeah, so I started out as a loan officer, so lending money to companies, and I came from another bank that worked with more traditional companies. My manager at the time was leaving to join Silicon Valley Bank, and he encouraged me to join him, and I did. And it was phenomenal. It's been an incredible, incredible career. But I started out lending money to early stage technology companies at Silicon Valley Bank in 1993. Now, that sounds like a very high risk sort of loan that typical banks don't make.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My extra special guest this week is Greg Becker. He is the president and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, where he has worked since 1993, since 2011. He has been running the place, both as CEO of SVB Financial Group and Silicon Valley Bank. Greg was named to Worth Magazine's Power 100 Most Influential People in Global Finance. Greg Becker, welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks, Barry. Great to be here. It's really great to have you here and doing this live in person. So when I look at Silicon Valley Bank, the question that comes into my head is, is this a bank that does some venture capital or is this a VC that offers some banking services? Well, we are bank, so let's be clear about that. We're a bank that... that caters to a very specific industry and then does a lot of things”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be absolutely fascinating, and I think you will. Also, with no further ado, my discussion with Silicon Valley Bank CEO, Greg Becker.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest. If you are at all interested in startups, entrepreneurism, lending, risk management, venture capital, strap yourself in this is a great one. Greg Becker, he's the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, where he's worked since 1993 and where he served as president and CEO of SVB Financial Group and Silicon Valley Bank since 2011. This is really a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation for somebody who is right at the nexus of everything from venture capital to life sciences to fintech to, you name it, but from the perspective of a commercial banker really located at the bullseye of the innovation economy, not just in the United States, but for the entire world. I found this conversation.”
2021-08-13 · Masters in Business · Greg Becker on the Innovation Business (Podcast) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source