Would I wear a tailored executive suit to a technical interview? No. But if I'm interviewing technical candidates, all else being equal, I'm going to favor the nicely dressed one who has attended to personal hygiene that day, vs. one that I would have trouble distinguishing from a panhandler.
Dressing up to an appropriate level shows you care.
And thus you would overlook Woz and demonstrate incompetency.
Not that I accept for a second that someone like Woz deserves patronizing language like "attended to personal hygiene that day" or "panhandler" - but people who base their evaluation of technical talent on social conformity certainly do see them that way.
The thing about the good investors the OP is talking about is that, increasingly, they don't do this. There are two reasons why they don't. One (which applies to only some, like YC) is that they are technical people themselves. The other is that the ones who do it lose to the ones who don't.
That is the historical trend and it has little to with fads or fashions. It has to do with economic power shifting towards people who create things.
All your evidence is decades too late, but you have a point. Woz would have worn a suit to a job interview or investor meeting. But the 1970s were a long time ago. It's no longer to be taken for granted.
I confess I did not see that. Still, I don't think one is a precise judge of talent one minute and the next minute (having determined that all other things are equal) switches to filtering for conformity. It's much more likely to be the other way around: first we see through our filters and then we judge what we see. Especially when what we're judging is something intangible like talent.
You claim it is simply conformity? I suppose this is a matter of opinion, and I am not so foolish as to think I can change yours. I will close by simply observing that to me, presenting yourself in a polished fashion is a display of respect, interest, and investment in the matter at hand. Even if it was simply a display of conformity, I disagree with your implicit presumption that conformity is by definition evil. You must pick your battles, and to me, what I wear to an interview is pretty low on the list of priority.
Ah, you've replied while I was busy editing my comment. Usually I get away with that without a collision. Well, I've tried to make it more reasonable and I suspect we don't really disagree that much. But I will add something: there are quite a few talented people who don't really have the choice to conform. They just don't "get" the social system well enough. And yeah, maybe part of it is that they're not interested enough to force themselves to do it. And I like a lot of those people and I don't like it when others turn their noses up at them.
Conformity isn't evil per se, but judging people for lack of it often is.
Interestingly, "conformity" is one of those words that no one uses about themselves. Like "tourist".
Looking like a panhandler is nothing like "not dressing up" for me and I don't really think that is what is being discussed, but if it is then my comments of course make no sense.
I also don't think tailored executive suits are what is being discussed.
Hygiene != Dress. I can wear a nice, clean teeshirt and cargo pants with some comfortable new Vans and still shower, shave and wear deoderant, fix my hair et al. I'm not untidy and I'm not naked, I clearly know how to clean and present myself. I'm still not going to wear a suit to an investor meeting because there's no need to. There's no reason to do so beyond convention and frankly fuck convention.
