Dee Hock: Huge Name but Small Enough to Fit Your Wallet

Dee Ward Hock was an American banker who founded the Visa credit card association. Hock influenced the Bank of America to give up its ownership and control of its credit card licensing called BankAmericard. Thereafter, Hock formed a non-stock membership company called National BankAmerica, which eventually became Visa in 1976.

Hock left Visa in May 1984 to spend 10 retirement years in isolation in a 200-acre land just west of the Silicon Valley. In 1991, Hock was inducted into the US Business Hall of Fame by the Junior Achievement. The following year, Money magazine inducted Hock into its own Hall of Fame.

In his acceptance speech at the Business Hall of Fame, Hock said he recognized four “beasts:” ego, envy, avarice, and ambition. When he decided to resign from Visa and live in anonymity and isolation, he traded “money for time, position for liberty, and ego for contentment.” He was able to cage the beasts.