Ken Wilcox (Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group) - Banking on Corporate Culture and Strategy

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

Stanford eCorner

Journey, Startups, Education, Stanford, Culture, Strategy, Stanford University, Entrepreneurship, Business, Life Lessons, Thought Leadership, Creativity, Etl, Challenges, Leadership, Innovation, Founders

4.4 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2008

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An outstanding office culture trumps all, says Ken Wilcox, the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, who heads the most noted financial hub for the technology sector. Wilcox discusses how his financial services institution has scaffolded against recession, and bullet points the uniqueness of commercial banking for the tech start-up.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You were listening to the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader series, brought to you weekly by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
0:10.0	You can find podcasts and video clips of these lectures online at edcorner.standford.edu.
0:19.7	Now, it brings me a great pleasure to introduce our last guest of the quarter.
0:25.6	He is an entrepreneur. He's a global leader. And he's actually an alum of one of my favorite places on Earth.
0:32.6	Ken is the leader of Silicon Valley Bank. And as you may know, by looking at his bio, you all can read faster than I can talk.
0:41.3	Ken Wilcox is different from a lot of the leaders that we have come in, in that he is a German scholar.
0:47.3	He studied that as an undergraduate, got a PhD in German studies, and then got a Harvard MBA,
0:51.3	and then did a bunch of stuff, and then joined Silicon Valley Bank in the East to lead their Eastern operations, and then got a Harvard MBA and then did a bunch of stuff and then joined Silicon Valley Bank
0:55.2	in the east to lead their eastern operations and then came west where he's been at the helm
1:00.0	of this really great Silicon Valley financial institution. Now how many of you have heard of Silicon
1:05.5	Valley Bank before today? Raise your hand. Has anybody actually done business with Silicon Valley Bank? Maybe you're in a startup that has worked with them? Anybody? Yes, at least a couple of people in the audience.
1:15.6	Well, SVB took good care of my little startup back when we got started in 2000 and was a great help in those years.
1:22.6	But I've known about the organization since I came to Silicon Valley in 1980, and then certainly
1:29.6	since 1989 when it came back.
1:31.9	It's a great financial institution, very entrepreneurial, very able to help entrepreneurs
1:36.1	get started, get connected with VCs, get connected with attorneys, public accountants, help
1:41.5	them to go global, all sorts of good things that most commercial banks don't know how to do.
1:46.0	And Silicon Valley Bank is not just a commercial bank, it does some private equity work.
1:50.0	Ken's going to tell you a little bit more about that, I hope, as well as lessons from his career.
1:54.0	Let's let me get off the stage and welcome Ken Wilcox. Welcome.
1:58.0	Thank you very much.
2:03.6	I think what I'd like to do today is to talk a little bit about how I got where I am,
	...

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