The Difference between San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and the Bay Area Explained

What is the difference between Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area? Is San Francisco a city or a county? Where in the Bay Area are the headquarters of the largest tech companies in the world?

This video explains the difference between San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and the Bay Area, gives brief overview of the history of Silicon Valley and how it came to dominate the tech industry, and gives you a tour of the Bay Area along with the companies headquartered there.

Image Credits:

Bay Bridge: Leonard G
San Francisco Skyline along Market Street from Twin Peaks: Vincent Bloch
San Francisco Street Map: Peter Fitzgerald, OpenStreetMap
Government Levels Responsibilities Sprites: Freeciv
Golden Gate Bridge driving away from SF: Weegee010
California Central Valley: LTSLTS
SV Family Tree/ Fairchildren graphic: IEEE Spectrum Magazine, October 2007
San Francisco Bay Area County Maps: Wikipedia Community
California Counties Map: Wikipedia Community
Map of North America: NuclearVacuum

Links for mobile users:

Mistakes:

Moore's first name is Gordon, not George
Lucasfilms moved to San Francisco in 2005, but much of the operation remains in Marin
Pronounciation

[Bioniking]

I'm living in the Bay right now. One thing that's so cool about it is everywhere is unique. You could be in Berkeley and travel 10 miles in any direction, and each path you take will lead you to a place with a completely different and unique feel to it

[FIFAmaster]

Oakland is a very diverse city. It has both rich and poor neighborhoods but with the gentrification occurring due to rich millionaires not being able to afford to live in SF because of the Silicon Valley's multi-millionaires are moving in, the millionaires started to move towards the east bay where Oakland is and other relative poor cities. California in general isnt like this only regions with important industries have such obscene cost for standard of living. Further inland everything is cheaper but less jobs compared to booming cities near the coast.

[juscallmeehx]

Great video although I can tell you are not native of the Bay Area with how often you mispronounce a lot of the names.

[johnpalacios]

Dude! Why did he barely describe the East Bay. We have Tesla, Seagate, Pixar, Clorox, and many more companies.

[calideeslife]

"If you took an Uber from Uber to Twitter, you'd be there before you're done tweeting about it" Best line in the video! 😊

[joe]

I’m a UC Berkeley grad who’s been working in Silicon Valley for 23 years. This video was very accurate, unlike others I’ve seen. Well done! 👏🏻

[genxr]

"...if you're poor and only make $100, 000 a year..."  LOL !!

[annabelarduino]

"... where, if you're American, is the origin of most of the fruits and vegetables you don't eat."

You've got your finger right on the pulse of the American people, you have.

[stannisthemannisbaratheon]

100k will get you a bed in a homeless shelter on the Bay Area

[reemtruhmkorf]

This has taught me at least two things.
1. It's amazing how much explanatory clarity of a Grey video hinges on the delivery style.
2. I can now finally use all of the weird geographical terms associated with the Bay Area. Hooray!

[joecalder]

Many, if not most of the major Silicon Valley industry innovations actually started in the Peninsula, comprised of 3/4 in San Mateo County and 1/4 in Santa Clara County. The Peninsula remains the heart of much Silicon Valley experience.

[tkornfeld]

Good video, but why are you pronouncing "Marin" like that? It's pronounced like muh-rihn.

[heccshoot]

Solano feels neglected :(
We have Jelly Belly...

[BowlOfNoodles]

90% of the comments "ITS MUH-RIHN NOT MARE-IN!!!"

[Jabrils]

incredible breakdown man, thanks for making this video!

[goodwizard]

I miss videos like these on YouTube. Just no nonsense, information packed stuff. Thank you.

[vinnycontini]

being someone who has lived in san jose his whole life, this was amazing to watch

[blu]

so, basically california is its own country

[occamsrazor]

Muh-rin. I'm an SF Bay native. Trust me, it pronounced Muh-rin.

[thetooginator]

As of 2021, my iPhone correctly pronounces the name of my home county: Marin County. I grew up in the Bay Area, and many place names are not intuitive. I think it would help if you checked out how place names are pronounced if you haven’t visited those places. It’s a bit jarring to here the place you grew up mispronounced.