A myth started several years ago and still floats around concerning the origin of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The myth goes that the idea of the Bank popped up at a poker game where important men in the Valley got together during one of their outings to play their favorite game. Like a good poker game, the story was told with a straight face. And, as in any good poker game, someone is bluffing. A bluff is a hand that is not the best hand but possesses the power to induce at least one opponent with a better hand to fold first. The poker game origin of SVB is a good bluff perpetuated by SVB’s video clips posted on YouTube.1

Apple Computer, Inc. released its “Think Different” campaign in 1997 to mark the return of Steve Jobs and to resurrect the struggling computer company. The Think Different campaign “got an audience that once thought of Apple as semi-cool, but semi-stupid to suddenly think about the brand in a whole new way.”1 Interestingly, be different is what Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) embraced and practiced from its beginning in 1983. The Bank distinguished itself from the crowded banking sector by serving entrepreneurs in the region since the early 1980s. At the time SVB was formed and officially named, “Silicon Valley” was considered unattractive for banking to capture the public attention and adopted the available moniker.

The three founders of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) epitomize Californian determination and pragmatism. Medearis, the Stanford professor, who for ten years listened to his students struggling to obtain loans, decided to float an idea of a community bank for tech companies. The professor sought out a banking consultant who brought in a bank executive who carried his dream of founding his own bank, the trio together established a community bank for tech. Their backgrounds and convictions illuminate the startup spirit synonymous with Silicon Valley. Their journey led them to select what was then an uncommon name, Silicon Valley Bank, in 1983.