Silicon Valley is "alive and well," but the level of prosperity depends on the tech sector, Oracle Chairman Jeffrey Henley told CNBC on Thursday.
"Certainly the tech industry is doing reasonably well," Henley said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "It feels a little bit in some of the markets like social media and cloud areas like the bubble 10 years, 15 years ago."
There's been a debate on Wall Street about possible asset bubbles developing since the Federal Reserve issued a report saying that valuations are stretched for smaller social media and biotech stocks. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen went so far as to pledge this month on Capitol Hill to watch this closely.
As for the overall economy, which the government said grew by 4 percent in the second quarter, Henley said: "It seems to like the economy is slowing recovering. We'd all like to see it recover faster." The economic contraction in the first quarter was not as bad as previously thought, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
Henley said one way to help boost the economy is to get an immigration policy that allows American companies to hire foreign workers who possess highly coveted tech skills.
His view is shared by many of the power brokers in tech, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has been leading a charge on immigration policies through the lobbying group FWD.us.
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"As a matter of public policy ... it's crazy to bring all these bright kids from India and China, put them in Stanford, Caltech, and these places, and not give them a job," Henley said. "They just go back to their countries and compete with us."
"We shouldn't be afraid of hiring Ph.D.s and master degrees in engineering and keep them in the U.S. It's good for our economy, it's good for our global position as companies," he said. "They want to stay. They want to become U.S. citizens. They want to work here. Why not keep them?"
Henley promoted this notion of increasing interest in science, technology, engineering and math as part of his role as a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of America. The organization on Thursday is launching its Great Futures Campaign in partnership with companies to support after-school and summer programs. Comcast, which owns CNBC, and NBC Universal are media partners
Many of the initiatives of the Boys & Girls Club align with Oracle's push on so-called STEM education, he said. "We are specifically focused on expanding the pool of talent in STEM-related jobs."
—By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere
