Every comment in this thread right now is casting doubt on Jason's point that you shouldn't be fake to seem more businesslike for investors. Wow. That's a bad sign.
Jason's talking about good investors and he's right. Take YC - if you're talking to the YCers about your startup it's just absurd to place importance on "businesslike" apparel or indeed anything other than your startup. No doubt there are a few genuine exceptions (Tesla liked to work in formal dress) but for the majority of us that comes as a relief.
I thought what Jason's saying was a truism by now. Valley culture may not have permeated everywhere in tech but it's far more widespread than it used to be - widespread enough that the point about dress is probably a good litmus test in most parts of the US and Canada. And any place it isn't true, that's a problem. The Valley culture of being informal and focusing on the work evolved for good reason.
All this would indicate is that there's a new dress-code. e.g. not turning up in jeans, hoodie/t-shirt (or whatever counts for 'casual') marks you out. It's just another uniform.
When you can rock up wearing a suit or a hoodie and be treated exactly the same is when dress no longer matters.
No objection to your second paragraph but I think your first is precisely wrong. It's not a new dress code, same as the old dress code. It's the side effect of a shift in economic relations.
Last year a video surfaced on HN about technical founders in the 1970s who would end up with 2% of their companies after taking investment. From there to, say, Zuck controlling Facebook and wearing hoodies because he likes hoodies is just a massive, massive change. It's happening for historical reasons. And to the extent that Silicon Valley is the avant-garde of the economy at large and YC the avant-garde of the valley, we can project where the trend is headed.
A commenter said that Buckminster Fuller preferred informal attire but couldn't get away with it in his day. Technical/creative people haven't changed. What's changed is the balance of power shifting toward them.
But the point's not really about clothes, and I feel like the heart of Jason's post got lost in this discussion. You should be who you are, that is, who you really feel yourself to be, because to fake it for the sake of others' approval is to give up your strength and the best things about you. That puts you in a weakened position. Are you going to do as good a job articulating yourself that way? I doubt it. But suppose it works and you get investment from people who wouldn't approve of you otherwise. Then what? Is that a good place to be?
Maybe the dude in the story was secretly looking forward to finally getting to wear fancy shoes and a crisp shirt - in that case, more power to him. But the story was premised on the idea that he didn't really want to.
As a prominent counter-example, Bill Gates was famous for showing up at tech conferences with a grungy t-shirt, unkempt hair, etc. (And like Zuckerberg, he didn't need to impress any bankers.)
> I once had lunch with PG after having come back from a VC meeting. I had just moved to California then and was wearing business attire. PG stopped mid-sentence to ask me if I had on french cuffs and then told me how investors like startup guys to be scrappy haha.
I don't think anyone is saying to be fake, but the same way you wouldn't show up to a wedding in ripped jeans and a t-shirt, you shouldn't show up to an investor pitch in those clothes either. Just cause you're wearing a suit to a wedding doesn't mean you're trying to be fake, it just means you understand the conventions surrounding the event; the conventions surrounding a pitch is similar. I wonder, at the YCom demo day, what do the presenting YCers wear?
I agree about the wedding, and disagree about the investor pitch. Underdressing for a wedding might be perceived as an insult. Likewise with an investor meeting, but the risk is much lower since it's not principally a social occasion. Moreover, dressing like a hacker has an upside: they'll know you're a hacker. Finally, underdressing is a status hack known as counter-signaling: if you're confident enough to show up to an investor pitch in jeans and a T shirt, you must be a badass. Jobs wore mock turtlenecks and jeans with holes in them; Zuck wears fleeces and shitty sandals.
great point, but let me ask you this, how many people out there have the talent and product that matches up to Jobs and Zuck; they're once (maybe twice) in a generation kind of guys. For everyone else, you should try to get as much help as possible, and I think dressing appropriately can help you do that. You're right though, counter-signaling is something that you can use to your advantage, but you should not just be a badass, but you better have a badass product (and hopefully tons of customers)
You both have a point but this counter-signaling thing is a fad. When everyone is doing it the value just plummets. The whole casual dress for pitching thing is so common now that I predict it's not long at all before the guys dressing nicely are taken more seriously again.
Also, what does "dressing like a hacker" mean? Hackers exist outside the valley too and there's no uniform that I was issued. Maybe theyre on back order for the Chicago metro area? But in all seriousness, if you said "he doesn't dress like a doctor" it makes far more sense than "he doesn't dress like a hacker". I'm a hacker but I'm also a business owner. So what attire do I don? Hoodie and flip flops or open sport jacket and collared shirt sans tie? I feel that in this case many aspects of hacker culture are just fads and the old standards (like dressing well for pitches and interviews) will never go out of style.
I think you'd find it's different in Silicon Valley.
Which is not to suggest in the slightest that you'd be out of place in an open sport jacket and collared shirt sans tie. But if you prefer a hoodie and flip-flops, I think you'd find you could indulge that preference more freely here.
I can't find it, but there was a thread on HN where it was mentioned that some YC alum (I think the first ever) showed up in suits and were told to lose them.
Thing is, I don't mind wearing a suit at all, and in fact prefer it in certain situations. A good suit can be just as comfortable as a t-shirt and jeans or whatever other bullshit.
I don't have a problem with jeans and sneakers, but there's that expression "never trust a programmer in a suit", and I do have a problem with that.
Agreed, I get annoyed when other programmers look at me askew for choosing to dress better than them. A lot of times it feels like there is a hacker dress code, it's just inverted.
Well, by "better" I mean that what I wear is usually intentional and has some thought put into it; whereas a lot of hackers will actually make a point of declaring that they put no effort at all into what they chose to wear.
And that's fine! If you don't care then you don't care. There's nothing wrong with that.
I just see it as weird that people use that notion of "not caring" as a badge of honor. My question to those people would be, why do you think it's weird that I do actually care?
Jason's talking about good investors and he's right. Take YC - if you're talking to the YCers about your startup it's just absurd to place importance on "businesslike" apparel or indeed anything other than your startup. No doubt there are a few genuine exceptions (Tesla liked to work in formal dress) but for the majority of us that comes as a relief.
I thought what Jason's saying was a truism by now. Valley culture may not have permeated everywhere in tech but it's far more widespread than it used to be - widespread enough that the point about dress is probably a good litmus test in most parts of the US and Canada. And any place it isn't true, that's a problem. The Valley culture of being informal and focusing on the work evolved for good reason.