Lunch At Silicon Valley Bank

I had lunch today with Ken Wilcox, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. Nice guy, he was very happy to report that all is well at the bank given how bad the Valley economy has been the past couple of years. For those who don't remember, the last time the Valley was in a recession the bank got hit hard with bad real estate loans. They don't do real estate anymore.

I thought the most interesting thing he said was that the bank has more loans outstanding now than in 2000. Ordinarily not surprising, but Silicon Valley Bank lends almost exclusively to the technology sector. With Comdisco going bankrupt and most other lenders pulling out of the tech sector, it's nice to see SVB sticking to basics and still doing well.