Name: This Bank Has Funded 20,000 Start-Ups
Uploaded: 2018-05-25
Duration: 5 min 20 s
Description: Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker discusses how they measure - and predict - success.

[ MUSIC ] As a Silicon Valley veteran, you've obviously seen so many cycles of technology. So how bullish or bearish are you? Yeah, I'm very bullish. When you think about the innovation of what's going on, it's incredibly broad- based. Number one. Number two, these companies are staying private longer. And, as I said, these companies are working with large companies and supporting their disruption until you look at this whole space, right. It is growing at a rapid pace and again, that's what's exciting about it. So we feel good about it, I feel good about it and that's kinda where we're along in innovation. Well, we know that there's a worry list for a lot of Silicon Valley executives, entrepreneurs. What's on their worry list? The most important thing, what do they tell you? One is they are concerned about talent. Talent is always the number one thing. The U. S. is not graduating enough, you now, this is citizens that actually are computer science degrees, engineering degrees that can go into these jobs, right And so we need to do a better job of training, educating, getting the US population to go more into this degrees. That's number one. Number two, it is about immigration, right. There are so many successful companies that have actually had immigration founders or cofounders. And if we don't let them into the country, if we don't invite them in and are warm and embrace them, They're gonna stay in their existing country and create a similar type of company. And we're gonna miss that opportunity to create great companies, and to hire great people and to employ more people in the U. S.. What about regulation? To what extent, if Washington comes through with some restrictions or some regulation, how might this impact tech companies and also innovation? It's gonna happen, and I think technology companies are Embracing it, and they know it's going to come. We have to work with the government officials and the tech companies to make sure that the policies that are put together are sound, make sense, protect individuals. but don't go too far. Greg, let's talk a little bit about Silicon Valley bank. You have spent most of your career at the bank, you've been CEO since 2011. You have funded more that 20 thousand start- ups, what's the secret to your success? Our job is to increase the probability of our client's success and if you start that with that philosophy at a very early stage And, you do it the all through to until they become bigger, more succesful. Even after they become public companies. And, that's what you drive down, right? Good things happen. Companies trust that we're going to do the right thing for them. And, that's probably the biggest foundational component of our success. Well you have a reputation for lending money to start- ups. And you have a willingness to work with entrepeneurs who run companies that have maybe no revenues. And it has paid off for you. So how can Silicone Valley Bank afford to do that while the big, established banks Stay away from these risky clients. You have to look at other things, you have to look at who the investors are, what industries they're going into, are they developing something that's unique that other companies can't replicate, right? How are they going to fund themselves in the future? All these things, I call it pattern recognition. We built this kind of tech approach over 30 years, and we've done a really good job of it. And that's probably the secret sauce that differentiates us Compare the traditional banks. The secret sauce in identifying these companies, how are you identifying the companies that are going to be successful? I mean, do you have scientists or tech experts or engineers that are advising you? How do you know that the innovations that these entrepreneurs are talking about Really gonna work. So many people think right away that we must have these tech experts on our staff that are figuring this out for us and giving us advice, and the short answer is we don't. We have people that are very smart that understand the industries, but we're not gonna have people that are smarter than the scientists and the technologists in these companies. So we use pattern recognition as probably the best indicator, a long history of pattern recognition. And that gives a sign of which ones are more likely gonna be successful than others. I understand that you get the First look at many deals, so I guess you see, coming across your desk what the possible new innovations could be. What do you see as the next new thing? We already know about artificial intelligence. Right. Beyond that. I've never seen such broad based Technology innovation. And it's in the technology side and it's the healthcare side. Probably one of the most exciting things, is where the two merge together. Digital health and machine learning to actually help better discovery of drugs for disease. The combination of those two things, I think is super exciting and I think we're gonna see an incredible amount of innovation. Over the next five, ten, fifteen years. Do you have some of these, like, telemedicine companies or digital health companies already in your portfolio? We have hundreds of them. And, again that's what's exciting. We're seeing technoology venture capitalists invest in some of these new companies. We're seeing life science comapies invest in companies that are taking in the technology approach. And again, it's the blending of the two. Which is most exciting from my standpoint. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

This Bank Has Funded 20,000 Start-Ups

Tech

Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker discusses how they measure - and predict - success.