Silicon Valley Bank reviews

As much as SVB tries to guise itself as this leading-edge, innovative bank that is changing the world and growing the "innovation ecosystem," the culture and day-to-day is equivalent to a traditional bank. The infastructure and systems are dated, innovation and change is almost frowned upon, and the culture is unhealthy and toxic (it's all about playing the politics game and kissing a** in order to get a promotion). It is also VERY bureaucratic. Lastly, the pay is absolutely horrendous, especially in San Francisco. Everyone at SVB knows they're underpaid by about 10-20% compared to the market average, however, most accept a lower compensation package in hopes of increasing their exit opportunities in 2-4yrs (some folks do go on to prominent VC firms). Overall, would not rec'd working at SVB.

The compliance department is a joke, keeping hiring incompetent Chief Compliance Officers and all they do is to talking about change, buying time until themselves got fired. The newly appointment Chief Compliance Officer is the worst, if you ever wonder how Wells Fargo got into phony account opening scandal last year and shed management responsibility by firing floor level employees when things got exploded, well, he is the walking post of that rotten culture. it is well known by everyone at the Bank how he screwed up the BSA/AML division and openly talked about his ability of putting out "smoking mirrors" to upper management and examiners, now he is promoted to even run the compliance department. SVB is running a huge risk to become the 2016 Wells Fargo. It is about time to say emperor have no cloth and we can expect our compliance department will be populated from drones from Wells Fargo soon.