Dan Arrigoni
July 2009 // Interviewed by David Gee
Dan Arrigoni is presi-
dent of uS bank home
Mortgage and guided
the company through
the melt-down virtually
unscathed.
Watching the run-up to a meltdown: I watched people who were loan
officers for a year open their own mortgage companies thinking they had
all the answers. And Wall Street was attracting all of these investment dollars so they were gobbling up the paper. I think mortgage regulation at
that time was weak and the entrance into our industry was not very difficult. It simply wasn’t sustainable.
resisting the lure of quick profits: I would get calls from corporate saying, “Geez, Dan, what’s going on? I mean, you are doing well and you are
holding your own but we don’t see the same growth in you as we do in
others.” I’d say, “You know what? They are growing the wrong way. This
whole thing is a disaster waiting to happen.”
A potential lose/lose: I remember a conversation I had with our CFO.
I said, “We have a decision to make; we can either stick to our guns, trust
our judgment and get fired for lack of market share and giving up some
profit, or we can make the loans everybody else is [making] and get fired
when this thing runs its course and collapses.” When you put it those
terms, I think all of us would take the road we took.
Pressure from above: If I were them I would have been applying some
pressure on me too, though. I would say, “Are you sure we are not leaving anything on the table? We are publicly traded, we are employed for
our shareholders and we need to be positive that we are not just making
dumb decisions here.” So they pressed me like they should and it was a
lot of pressure.
Aftermath to a survivor: It feels good to know, though, that we are strong
and thriving today due to the fact we did not make the subprime lending
mistakes. We have the highest credit rating of any major bank in America
and I think we made the right decisions for the right reasons.
Michael Gorman november 2009 // interviewed by elizabeth Millard
Michael Gorman is the managing director of venture capital firm Split Rock Partners.
Ignore near-term gain: there will
always be boom and bust cycles.
you have to recognize that the
ups and downs of the near-term
capital markets can’t totally dic-
tate your strategy.
Stretching the entrepreneurial
buck: there’s much more focus
on capital conservation and
efficiency, so entrepreneurs are
making each dollar go as far as
possible.
Post-shock venture capital:
when an economic system goes
through shock, as it has, avenues
of funding become more limited,
and that means venture capital
firms will hold companies for
longer in their portfolios.
Great challenge breeds great
opportunity: there’s still fallout
in the business world from the
massive technology bubble col-
lapse, independent of the most
recent economic malaise, so the
venture industry is in the process
of shrinking.
Technology at full speed: there
will be an ongoing transition of
the internet as a core commerce
platform. we’re still a long way
from applying all the information
that’s created to market effec-
tively, and take advantage of the
ad platform.
Ignore traditional indicators:
entrepreneurs aren’t guided by
the naSdaQ, they’re doing what
they do because they have a
great idea or a new development.
