9 ms·

Dress codes: Suitable disruption

43 points by wyclif 12y ago

PaulHoule 12y ago
It's not necessarily a step forwards. If you want to look good in a suit you can go get a $200 suit at any menswear store and if you want to look really good in a suit go spend $1500 for a tailored suit. You can do either of these and get something acceptable without knowing anything about fashion. If you want to look like a cultivated hipster, however, you have to work hard at it.
- Ixiaus 12y ago
  Disagree. I've been into Men's Fashion for about a year now and most menswear stores dress men like shit. It's really hard to figure out your style, fit, and the items that compliment it but a man that has done that work communicates a lot IMHO. It's a holistic picture. If it's clear you've put thought into something whether it's your body, your written or spoken words, your "costume", your app design, or your code design; that communicates far more than just selecting for anyone not wearing something casual. I used to use a similar process for finding employees: cast my net for Haskell / Scala / Erlang and I'll find the best programmers. While that bias held true to a degree it also excludes a large swath of people that might actually be a better fit, my failing there is not developing a multi-dimensional and rigorous process for finding and vetting.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  Point of fact: if I want to look good in a suit, I also have to spend at least six months strictly following a diet and exercise regime. Other forms of apparel are much more forgiving.
  - jghn 12y ago
    I'm about as anti-suit as they come but this is patently false. A well tailored suit is about as forgiving as they come.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      Adding "well-tailored" as a qualifying adjective is effectively begging the question. A well-tailored anything will make you look better than its off-the-shelf equivalent. If we're just throwing free tailoring around, I'll also have my polo and khakis tailored, and then we can compare between them on the runway. It may well be that no style of clothing makes me look better than a suit, and that I still don't look good in one.
  - BSousa 12y ago
    Well, there are a lot of 'larger' men that look good in a suit. But they probably go for a double breasted one and tailor it right. But even when I wasn't at my best, most suits are very forgiving in that area, it just needs to be tailored to your build (and not off the rack where they expect your shoulders, chest, hip be a certain generic proportion).
  - TheCoelacanth 12y ago
    I've found that a suit disguises my doughy physique better than anything short of a winter coat.
Brushfire 12y ago
The amusing part about not doing business with people wearing suits is that it's the exact same attitude as those who only do business with suits. This is really age old - people want to work/invest/befriend people similar to themselves. What someone wears or looks like should be a bad predictor for anything over any meaningful stretch of time. Whether that becomes reality is up to us.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  > not doing business with people wearing suits is that it's the exact same attitude as those who only do business with suits If you mean it's prejudicial, then yes. Thiel said as much. But it's not exactly the same. The brand that goes along with a suit is, "I want to impress you by doing things excellently in the traditional way." I can see how that would be off-putting for someone trying to invest in disruptive start-ups. > What someone wears or looks like should be a bad predictor for anything There are entire fields of study that disagree with you, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
  - ModernMech 12y ago
    But when Thiel says "I will not do business with people who dress in a suit, no matter what their idea is" the response from entrepreneurs will be always dressing in hoodies. Now that Thiel said this, in fact the non-conformists are the ones dressing in suits. Otherwise, they're just conforming to Thiel's preferred aesthetic in order to pass his bogus filter.
    - humanrebar 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure that by the time hoodies are as traditional as suits are now, Thiel will be dead. Or at least he'll have a new heuristic (if he doesn't already). Conforming to preferred aesthetics to pass bogus filters is an integral part of our lives. Otherwise, we wouldn't have and use euphemisms.
    - danielweber 12y ago
pkteison 12y ago
I've never understood valuing the choice of costume... if this is really an important signal, doesn't the hoodie just become the new suit?
- blafunke 12y ago
  Yup, followed by an article titled "don't do business with hoodies"
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Oh Sneetches, my name is Sylvester McMonkey McBean, And what you need is a trip through my Hoodie-Off Machine.
- ak217 12y ago
  Hoodie: $20-$40 Suit: $200-$2000
  - alialkhatib 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure you can find a suit for $40 and a hoodie for $200. Put the hoodie on a pedestal as the symbol of "hacker cred" and you'll inevitably see hoodies for far more than even that as designers capitalize on founders with more money than sense.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      http://www.bbcicecream.eu/billionaireboysclub/billionaire+boys+club+eu+exclusive+diamond++dollar+arch+logo+pullover/black http://www.bbcicecream.eu/billionaireboysclub/billionaire+bo... £135, or $227.
      - ics 12y ago
        http://store.y-3.com/us/y3store/cardigan_cod39402247tg.html http://store.y-3.com/us/y3store/cardigan_cod39402247tg.html Same price, now that it's "50% off".
jbooth 12y ago
If I ever pitch something someplace that's known to follow that rule, I'm showing up in a tuxedo.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Only if it's evening, please...
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Scottish Highland dress may apparently be worn in daytime formal events and in the evening - and usefully contains a dagger (a sgian-dubh).
  - kyllo 12y ago
    Correct, if it's a daytime interview he should wear a morning coat with a matching waistcoat, striped trousers, and a long tie or optionally an Ascot.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      And a top hat! That's daytime formal, but it's arguably closer to white tie (tailcoat). Another option is the stroller - charcoal coat with peak lapels, waist coat, striped or check trousers. Also, just a 1980s power suit could be a fun approach.
      - kyllo 12y ago
        Also, just a 1980s power suit could be a fun approach. The bigger the shoulder pads, the better!
        dllthomas 12y ago
        Not a real 1980s suit otherwise!
jchonphoenix 12y ago
Napster died long before founders fund existed. Perhaps they're just referring to Seans presence
zcdziura 12y ago
Even in a business setting, there are ways to "stand out" in how you dress. As I'm typing this now, working at my 9-5 business casual job, I'm wearing a bright pink collared shirt with a striped bow tie. Why? Because I look damn good in it, and people notice. Just because I'm not wearing a tee-shirt and jeans doesn't mean I'm "conforming". Absolutely stupid.
- msandford 12y ago
  Right? In another couple of years it'll be "disruptive" to wear a suit instead of looking like a slob. Congrats! You're ahead of the curve, not behind it. This is the very definition of fashion: it has to do with trends and popularity rather than utility or fundamental reasoning.
  - jimbokun 12y ago
    "Right? In another couple of years it'll be "disruptive" to wear a suit instead of looking like a slob." This might be true already.
soneca 12y ago
The "red sneakers effect" itself is a much more interesting reading to understand this new dress code. http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/The%20Red%20Sneakers%20Effect%202014_4657b733-84f0-4ed6-a441-d401bbbac19d.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/The%20Red%20S... The title pretty much sums up the conclusion: "The Red Sneakers Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity". One important point is that is important to realize that the individual is aware of the dress code and decide to nonconformity. I wonder... if I ever have a meeting with Peter Thiel, I might appear in a suit, but opening with the line "I am aware that you disregard suits, but I just prefer to use it, i like to be elegant, sorry". Just to check if nonconformity to the nonconfirmity causes the same effect.
ignostic 12y ago
What the article pointed out that I think a lot of people are missing here is the potential value of being perceived as unique. To use an analogy that a lot of people here might understand, unique design works. Whether you're designing a product page or an ad, you can get by with standard and unsurprising design (the suit), especially with a great product, but you'll catch attention more quickly with something different. We found that intro videos worked, so we implemented them. Then we found that the effectiveness was declining as absolutely everyone used them. We were no longer cutting through the clutter. Fashion is very similar. If you cut through the clutter of what everyone else is doing, you look innovative. It won't help if you're dull and boring, but it could help you get someone's attention so that you'll at least be considered. That's not to say that all different is good. I could design a very "different" page, but that's not to say it would work. The idea is to look different in a way that isn't completely crazy.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 12y ago
> The evidence suggests that Thiel’s bias worked: the fund was an early investor in companies like Napster, Facebook and Spotify. 'Maybe we still would have avoided these bad investments if we had taken the time to evaluate each company’s technology in detail,' he writes. 'But the team insight—never invest in a tech CEO that wears a suit—got us to the truth a lot faster.' Or, maybe Peter Thiel just has a good intuition for investments and could tell the potential success of these companies without digging too deep into the technology? Go back a generation: do you think the founders of Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Apple, etc, went into pitches looking like hipsters? Heck, Jeff Bezos still wears a suit.[1] What kind of results would this filter have had when the prevailing fashion trend wasn't to dress down? [1] And frankly, I think he styles all over most tech CEO's: http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/04/130904_jeff_bezos_reuters_605.jpg http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/04/130904_jeff_bez...
- jimbokun 12y ago
  For Apple, quite possibly. https://www.google.com/search?q=woz+jobs&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RGbiU4_ED86zyATK1YKgDQ&ved=0CBwQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=995 https://www.google.com/search?q=woz+jobs&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo... Was going to say definitely, but there are actually some pictures in there with Woz in a tie. Jobs bow tie, though, in those pictures, is definitely a sartorial mark of non-conformity for that era.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    This guy in the vest? http://snakkle.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/steve-jobs-steve-wozniak-1977-GC..jpg http://snakkle.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/20.... I don't know about that B&W bowtie pic, but that color pic is from the Apple IIc launch in 1984. Apple IPO'ed in 1980, and was already making over a billion dollars in revenue by 1984. And the bowtie is a bit non-conformist, but Jobs wasn't exactly dressed like a hipster even in 1984: http://everystevejobsvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Steve-Jobs-and-John-Sculley.jpg http://everystevejobsvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/St.... And I don't know how non-conformist that bow-tie really is. Here's Justice John Paul Stevens at his Senate confirmation hearing in 1975: http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/04/09/stevens1-3a512da4a4a29f778cbc310df51fb336bb9e4186-s6-c30.jpg http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/04/09/stevens1-3a512da....
doctorstupid 12y ago
> "...by stripping away the artificial appearances of showmanship, you can get to the truth about a product, person, or business." Hah! In this case we have formality being replaced with yet a more juvenile form of showmanship.
cheery 12y ago
Thought wearing well is about respecting other people, or following etiquette.
nsxwolf 12y ago
Men's Warehouse needs their PR firm to inject one of those "suits are back" stories to counteract this one.
- kyllo 12y ago
  Nice. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
ww520 12y ago
I learned this at the interview of my first programmer job as a summer intern back in school. I wore full suit into an outdoor interview on a hot summer day. The interviewer laughed and said you don't have to be this formal, who happened to be the president of the development studio. The interview was short, which felt uncomfortable. I went back to dorm and changed into T-shirt and jeans, and then went back to meet him again to show some sample code I wrote. This apparently had impressed him and he decided to hire me.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  Wearing T shirts and jeans impressed him, or the code you wrote? I would hope it was the latter.
  - ww520 12y ago
    Later in his words, it's the enthusiasm he saw in me to take the initiative to rectify a problem.
  - omnibrain 12y ago
    I suspect it was that he showed the ability to judge a situation and to adapt to it.
dllthomas 12y ago
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Vint_Cerf_-_2010.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Vint_Cerf...
zokier 12y ago
I think this comment from articles comments is worth discussing more: > I am one of the few people in my office that wears a suit to work (because I like the simplicity of it and I think they are comfortable and look nice). I just wonder if I'm the conformist or non-conformist in my company? Wearing suit doesn't necessarily imply conformism or that the wearer is trying to signal wealthiness. Sure, there might be correlation, but maybe the guy just likes wearing a suit?
zacharycohn 12y ago
Meta: Another good example of a title change being less descriptive. Original title was much better.
incision 12y ago
I'm going to add this to my list of coin flip 'rules' I don't really care about. Coin flip in the sense that you might as well flip a coin, or perhaps a roll a die to determine the 'correct' answer for any given person you meet. One person doesn't do business with suits. Another is a self-styled fashionista who reads all sorts of things into whatever your choice of clothes. A third is ready to show you the door because you you took your jacket off. One person thinks saying 'I don't know.' is sign of humility and intelligence. Another wants to hear you try to triangulate a solution based on what you do know. A third thinks either of the first two answers is pure garbage and wants you to be able to recite tricky code by rote. In general, I find these these sort of 'rules' to be lazy bullshit. Therefore, I can only imagine that this is merely a catchy side note among the actual strategies of someone as successful and by all accounts as smart as Peter Thiel.
imsofuture 12y ago
> "you’re showing you can afford to spend your social capital… You’re saying, I’m so autonomous and successful that I can afford to dress in a non-conforming way." That's the most interesting take-away for me. Obviously the pendulum of fashion swings back and forth -- but the nonconformist signaling is an interesting phenomenon that spans it.
- danielweber 12y ago
  I am going to bring my peacock with a 30 foot plume. I hope Peter Thiel can handle my attitude, dude. Cowabunga!
deleted 12y ago
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jasonkester 12y ago
Indeed. At least on the West Coast, the better your job, the less likely you are to be wearing a suit. Your CEO will wear a turtleneck and sneakers around the office. The guy who tears your movie ticket in half? He's wearing a suit. I had a fun job interview experience early in my dev career. I rocked up to the first interview in my "Developer" costume, and was shocked to find everybody dressed like bankers in crisp new suits. Yikes! Thinking about it, I guess these guys do do a bunch of work for banking clients. Better suit up for interview number two. But no. It just happened that that was the day the client happened to be in town, so the entire company had done its Serious Business impression for the day. Thus leading to the day later that week where Jason showed up for an interview in his best suit, and walked into a room full of guys in shorts and t-shirts. "Meet the team." Somehow, I still landed the gig.
- jacques_chester 12y ago
  I always ask what I should wear.
padobson 12y ago
The last, and best paragraph: At the end of the day, the trend toward informality doesn’t actually get away from the traditional business emphasis on appearance and presentation. It just replaces one standard with another that is, in its own way, just as obsessed with appearance. Still, insofar as this new bias emphasises—at least for some time—originality, independence, and substance over style, it serves a purpose, as Mr Thiel's anecdote highlights. The irony is that it still has to go through style to get there. When it comes to dress code, slide deck preparation, demo length vs. pitch length, and what questions to expect, the answer is always the same: know who you are pitching to. The best entrepreneur isn't the one who always wears a hoodie or always wears a suit. The best entrepreneur is the one who picks one or the other out based on who they're going to meet that day.
graham1776 12y ago
One piece I think was missing from this article is how dressing in a suit vs dressing casually affects the culture within a company. I have to wear a full suit every day to work, and I hate it. In offline conversations with co-workers, they hate it too. The formal business requirement came straight from the CEO who is of the traditional belief that our suits set us apart (whatever that means). What has resulted (along with our open office plan) is a culture that is artificially stilted, both in conversation and relationally between employees. The reason I believe this to be true is comparing "normal" formal business days with the random, once a year day where we all go on a team building exercise or have to do some physical "outside" activity and we can wear jeans and shirts. The office moral, attitude, and conversation are completely different. I don't know if there is a way to quantify exactly what I am talking about, but have noticed a distinct change in our behaviors that seem directly tied to how we dress.
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  I once worked at a place where the dress code mandated that all employees wear clothing bearing the company logo every day. This, of course, was widely reviled by anyone that did any actual work. The software developers analyzed a loophole and published the exploit to the local branch office. From then on, people wore whatever they liked, and just kept a logo-embroidered fleece jacket draped over their work chairs. A few bolder individuals purchased a company-logo lab coat and wore it around the office. The branch manager never reported any violation of the dress code--because technically there were no violations--but did take care to inform everyone ahead of time whenever employees from headquarters were scheduled to visit. At another job, the dress code was to wear clothing when customers were in the office. The actual median daily apparel worn in those two different offices were virtually identical. The latter simply showed greater variance in styles of dress. If I had to maintain an entire closet filled with garments that I would never want to wear anywhere outside of work, that would severely irritate me, to the extent that I would almost certainly become well acquainted with a pearl wholesaler, despite the apparent physical impossibilities involved. But it is a perfect indicator that management is willing to impose arbitrary, capricious, top-down working requirements on employees, without respect to consequences, intended or otherwise. So not only do I endorse the prejudicial maxim to not do business with suits, I extend it to teams whose dress appears suspiciously homogenous, uniform-like, or logo-emblazoned. I want to deal with people, not mooks, peons, toadies, or serfs. If I see one person on a team in a t-shirt, and another in a pinstriped dress shirt with polka-dotted bow tie, I can be reasonably certain that no one told either of those two what to wear. Especially their mothers.
robert_tweed 12y ago
I've previously summarised this as "never trust a techie in a suit." Another way to look at this has nothing to do with conformism. Whereas a suit says "I feel the need to dress to impress you", casual wear says "I don't need to dress to impress you, that's not why you're going to hire me". I have noticed a recent trend towards a sort of hipster dress code, but I'm hoping that's just a transient thing that doesn't catch on. Traditionally, the hacker dress code has been more about not caring what anyone thinks than either trying to stand out, or to fit in. I tend to follow that principle, and will perhaps go with smart jeans and a jacket for more formal meetings. There are however, environments where you're just expected to wear a suit. You have a choice of either avoiding those environments altogether, or just bite the bullet and wear a suit. Unless you are specifically trying to be non-conformist. The book "The Bluffer's Guide to Consultancy" advises that a consultant should always wear the opposite of the established dress code, so people will fear and respect you. Therefore if you are going to an office where everyone wears suits, you should dress casually. If you are going somewhere casual, you should wear a suit. It further suggests that if you are going to both types of office on the same day, you should dress as a farmer :)
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Another way to look at this has nothing to do with conformism. Whereas a suit says "I feel the need to dress to impress you", casual wear says "I don't need to dress to impress you, that's not why you're going to hire me". Except that, in any community where the maxim you state is broadly known to be applied, the actual meaning is reversed, since anyone who is aware of the maxim and wishes to dress to impress will wear casual clothes, wherease anyone aware of the maxim who continues to wear business clothes will be doing flying in the face of the maxim in the same way that someone wearing casual clothes to an interview in a more traditional environment would be.
ademarre 12y ago
Good tech founders need to be innovative, not encumbered by "the way things ought to be." It's reasonable that dress would be a valid signal of that quality, but I don't know if I'd make a rule around it.
Fuzzwah 12y ago
On the red sneaker effect: I'm a sys admin by trade. Every new job that I've started I've made a concerted effort to hunt down the other tech people around the company who are the most obviously "non-conformist". I have a near 100% success rate of quickly finding out who the most knowledgeable staff members are.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rdl 12y ago
Everyone having uniforms (and then as contractors, having effectively a similar uniform of basically a company polo shirt or a long-sleeved safari shirt) was a huge time/effort/thought saver when working with the military. Even better, having name and organization clearly marked on the clothing, near the face, and strong indicators of levels of seniority/authority (not strictly rank/grade, but rank in specific contexts).

43 points by wyclif 12y ago

It's not necessarily a step forwards. If you want to look good in a suit you can go get a $200 suit at any menswear store and if you want to look really good in a suit go spend $1500 for a tailored suit. You can do either of these and get something acceptable without knowing anything about fashion. If you want to look like a cultivated hipster, however, you have to work hard at it.

Ixiaus 12y ago
Disagree. I've been into Men's Fashion for about a year now and most menswear stores dress men like shit. It's really hard to figure out your style, fit, and the items that compliment it but a man that has done that work communicates a lot IMHO. It's a holistic picture. If it's clear you've put thought into something whether it's your body, your written or spoken words, your "costume", your app design, or your code design; that communicates far more than just selecting for anyone not wearing something casual. I used to use a similar process for finding employees: cast my net for Haskell / Scala / Erlang and I'll find the best programmers. While that bias held true to a degree it also excludes a large swath of people that might actually be a better fit, my failing there is not developing a multi-dimensional and rigorous process for finding and vetting.
logfromblammo 12y ago
Point of fact: if I want to look good in a suit, I also have to spend at least six months strictly following a diet and exercise regime. Other forms of apparel are much more forgiving.
- jghn 12y ago
  I'm about as anti-suit as they come but this is patently false. A well tailored suit is about as forgiving as they come.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    Adding "well-tailored" as a qualifying adjective is effectively begging the question. A well-tailored anything will make you look better than its off-the-shelf equivalent. If we're just throwing free tailoring around, I'll also have my polo and khakis tailored, and then we can compare between them on the runway. It may well be that no style of clothing makes me look better than a suit, and that I still don't look good in one.
- BSousa 12y ago
  Well, there are a lot of 'larger' men that look good in a suit. But they probably go for a double breasted one and tailor it right. But even when I wasn't at my best, most suits are very forgiving in that area, it just needs to be tailored to your build (and not off the rack where they expect your shoulders, chest, hip be a certain generic proportion).
- TheCoelacanth 12y ago
  I've found that a suit disguises my doughy physique better than anything short of a winter coat.

Brushfire 12y ago

The amusing part about not doing business with people wearing suits is that it's the exact same attitude as those who only do business with suits. This is really age old - people want to work/invest/befriend people similar to themselves. What someone wears or looks like should be a bad predictor for anything over any meaningful stretch of time. Whether that becomes reality is up to us.

humanrebar 12y ago
> not doing business with people wearing suits is that it's the exact same attitude as those who only do business with suits If you mean it's prejudicial, then yes. Thiel said as much. But it's not exactly the same. The brand that goes along with a suit is, "I want to impress you by doing things excellently in the traditional way." I can see how that would be off-putting for someone trying to invest in disruptive start-ups. > What someone wears or looks like should be a bad predictor for anything There are entire fields of study that disagree with you, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory
- ModernMech 12y ago
  But when Thiel says "I will not do business with people who dress in a suit, no matter what their idea is" the response from entrepreneurs will be always dressing in hoodies. Now that Thiel said this, in fact the non-conformists are the ones dressing in suits. Otherwise, they're just conforming to Thiel's preferred aesthetic in order to pass his bogus filter.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure that by the time hoodies are as traditional as suits are now, Thiel will be dead. Or at least he'll have a new heuristic (if he doesn't already). Conforming to preferred aesthetics to pass bogus filters is an integral part of our lives. Otherwise, we wouldn't have and use euphemisms.
  - danielweber 12y ago

pkteison 12y ago

I've never understood valuing the choice of costume... if this is really an important signal, doesn't the hoodie just become the new suit?

blafunke 12y ago
Yup, followed by an article titled "don't do business with hoodies"
- danielweber 12y ago
  Oh Sneetches, my name is Sylvester McMonkey McBean, And what you need is a trip through my Hoodie-Off Machine.
ak217 12y ago
Hoodie: $20-$40 Suit: $200-$2000
- alialkhatib 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure you can find a suit for $40 and a hoodie for $200. Put the hoodie on a pedestal as the symbol of "hacker cred" and you'll inevitably see hoodies for far more than even that as designers capitalize on founders with more money than sense.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    http://www.bbcicecream.eu/billionaireboysclub/billionaire+boys+club+eu+exclusive+diamond++dollar+arch+logo+pullover/black http://www.bbcicecream.eu/billionaireboysclub/billionaire+bo... £135, or $227.
    - ics 12y ago
      http://store.y-3.com/us/y3store/cardigan_cod39402247tg.html http://store.y-3.com/us/y3store/cardigan_cod39402247tg.html Same price, now that it's "50% off".

jbooth 12y ago

If I ever pitch something someplace that's known to follow that rule, I'm showing up in a tuxedo.

dllthomas 12y ago
Only if it's evening, please...
- arethuza 12y ago
  Scottish Highland dress may apparently be worn in daytime formal events and in the evening - and usefully contains a dagger (a sgian-dubh).
- kyllo 12y ago
  Correct, if it's a daytime interview he should wear a morning coat with a matching waistcoat, striped trousers, and a long tie or optionally an Ascot.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    And a top hat! That's daytime formal, but it's arguably closer to white tie (tailcoat). Another option is the stroller - charcoal coat with peak lapels, waist coat, striped or check trousers. Also, just a 1980s power suit could be a fun approach.
    - kyllo 12y ago
      Also, just a 1980s power suit could be a fun approach. The bigger the shoulder pads, the better!
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Not a real 1980s suit otherwise!

jchonphoenix 12y ago

Napster died long before founders fund existed. Perhaps they're just referring to Seans presence

zcdziura 12y ago

Even in a business setting, there are ways to "stand out" in how you dress. As I'm typing this now, working at my 9-5 business casual job, I'm wearing a bright pink collared shirt with a striped bow tie. Why? Because I look damn good in it, and people notice. Just because I'm not wearing a tee-shirt and jeans doesn't mean I'm "conforming". Absolutely stupid.

msandford 12y ago
Right? In another couple of years it'll be "disruptive" to wear a suit instead of looking like a slob. Congrats! You're ahead of the curve, not behind it. This is the very definition of fashion: it has to do with trends and popularity rather than utility or fundamental reasoning.
- jimbokun 12y ago
  "Right? In another couple of years it'll be "disruptive" to wear a suit instead of looking like a slob." This might be true already.

soneca 12y ago

The "red sneakers effect" itself is a much more interesting reading to understand this new dress code. http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/The%20Red%20Sneakers%20Effect%202014_4657b733-84f0-4ed6-a441-d401bbbac19d.pdf http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/The%20Red%20S... The title pretty much sums up the conclusion: "The Red Sneakers Effect: Inferring Status and Competence from Signals of Nonconformity". One important point is that is important to realize that the individual is aware of the dress code and decide to nonconformity. I wonder... if I ever have a meeting with Peter Thiel, I might appear in a suit, but opening with the line "I am aware that you disregard suits, but I just prefer to use it, i like to be elegant, sorry". Just to check if nonconformity to the nonconfirmity causes the same effect.

ignostic 12y ago

What the article pointed out that I think a lot of people are missing here is the potential value of being perceived as unique. To use an analogy that a lot of people here might understand, unique design works. Whether you're designing a product page or an ad, you can get by with standard and unsurprising design (the suit), especially with a great product, but you'll catch attention more quickly with something different. We found that intro videos worked, so we implemented them. Then we found that the effectiveness was declining as absolutely everyone used them. We were no longer cutting through the clutter. Fashion is very similar. If you cut through the clutter of what everyone else is doing, you look innovative. It won't help if you're dull and boring, but it could help you get someone's attention so that you'll at least be considered. That's not to say that all different is good. I could design a very "different" page, but that's not to say it would work. The idea is to look different in a way that isn't completely crazy.

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rayiner 12y ago

> The evidence suggests that Thiel’s bias worked: the fund was an early investor in companies like Napster, Facebook and Spotify. 'Maybe we still would have avoided these bad investments if we had taken the time to evaluate each company’s technology in detail,' he writes. 'But the team insight—never invest in a tech CEO that wears a suit—got us to the truth a lot faster.' Or, maybe Peter Thiel just has a good intuition for investments and could tell the potential success of these companies without digging too deep into the technology? Go back a generation: do you think the founders of Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Apple, etc, went into pitches looking like hipsters? Heck, Jeff Bezos still wears a suit.[1] What kind of results would this filter have had when the prevailing fashion trend wasn't to dress down? [1] And frankly, I think he styles all over most tech CEO's: http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/04/130904_jeff_bezos_reuters_605.jpg http://images.politico.com/global/2013/09/04/130904_jeff_bez...

jimbokun 12y ago
For Apple, quite possibly. https://www.google.com/search?q=woz+jobs&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RGbiU4_ED86zyATK1YKgDQ&ved=0CBwQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=995 https://www.google.com/search?q=woz+jobs&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo... Was going to say definitely, but there are actually some pictures in there with Woz in a tie. Jobs bow tie, though, in those pictures, is definitely a sartorial mark of non-conformity for that era.
- rayiner 12y ago
  This guy in the vest? http://snakkle.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/steve-jobs-steve-wozniak-1977-GC..jpg http://snakkle.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/20.... I don't know about that B&W bowtie pic, but that color pic is from the Apple IIc launch in 1984. Apple IPO'ed in 1980, and was already making over a billion dollars in revenue by 1984. And the bowtie is a bit non-conformist, but Jobs wasn't exactly dressed like a hipster even in 1984: http://everystevejobsvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Steve-Jobs-and-John-Sculley.jpg http://everystevejobsvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/St.... And I don't know how non-conformist that bow-tie really is. Here's Justice John Paul Stevens at his Senate confirmation hearing in 1975: http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/04/09/stevens1-3a512da4a4a29f778cbc310df51fb336bb9e4186-s6-c30.jpg http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/04/09/stevens1-3a512da....

doctorstupid 12y ago

> "...by stripping away the artificial appearances of showmanship, you can get to the truth about a product, person, or business." Hah! In this case we have formality being replaced with yet a more juvenile form of showmanship.

cheery 12y ago

Thought wearing well is about respecting other people, or following etiquette.

nsxwolf 12y ago

Men's Warehouse needs their PR firm to inject one of those "suits are back" stories to counteract this one.

kyllo 12y ago
Nice. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

ww520 12y ago

I learned this at the interview of my first programmer job as a summer intern back in school. I wore full suit into an outdoor interview on a hot summer day. The interviewer laughed and said you don't have to be this formal, who happened to be the president of the development studio. The interview was short, which felt uncomfortable. I went back to dorm and changed into T-shirt and jeans, and then went back to meet him again to show some sample code I wrote. This apparently had impressed him and he decided to hire me.

jiggy2011 12y ago
Wearing T shirts and jeans impressed him, or the code you wrote? I would hope it was the latter.
- ww520 12y ago
  Later in his words, it's the enthusiasm he saw in me to take the initiative to rectify a problem.
- omnibrain 12y ago
  I suspect it was that he showed the ability to judge a situation and to adapt to it.

dllthomas 12y ago

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Vint_Cerf_-_2010.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Vint_Cerf...

zokier 12y ago

I think this comment from articles comments is worth discussing more: > I am one of the few people in my office that wears a suit to work (because I like the simplicity of it and I think they are comfortable and look nice). I just wonder if I'm the conformist or non-conformist in my company? Wearing suit doesn't necessarily imply conformism or that the wearer is trying to signal wealthiness. Sure, there might be correlation, but maybe the guy just likes wearing a suit?

zacharycohn 12y ago

Meta: Another good example of a title change being less descriptive. Original title was much better.

incision 12y ago

I'm going to add this to my list of coin flip 'rules' I don't really care about. Coin flip in the sense that you might as well flip a coin, or perhaps a roll a die to determine the 'correct' answer for any given person you meet. One person doesn't do business with suits. Another is a self-styled fashionista who reads all sorts of things into whatever your choice of clothes. A third is ready to show you the door because you you took your jacket off. One person thinks saying 'I don't know.' is sign of humility and intelligence. Another wants to hear you try to triangulate a solution based on what you do know. A third thinks either of the first two answers is pure garbage and wants you to be able to recite tricky code by rote. In general, I find these these sort of 'rules' to be lazy bullshit. Therefore, I can only imagine that this is merely a catchy side note among the actual strategies of someone as successful and by all accounts as smart as Peter Thiel.

imsofuture 12y ago

> "you’re showing you can afford to spend your social capital… You’re saying, I’m so autonomous and successful that I can afford to dress in a non-conforming way." That's the most interesting take-away for me. Obviously the pendulum of fashion swings back and forth -- but the nonconformist signaling is an interesting phenomenon that spans it.

danielweber 12y ago
I am going to bring my peacock with a 30 foot plume. I hope Peter Thiel can handle my attitude, dude. Cowabunga!

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jasonkester 12y ago

Indeed. At least on the West Coast, the better your job, the less likely you are to be wearing a suit. Your CEO will wear a turtleneck and sneakers around the office. The guy who tears your movie ticket in half? He's wearing a suit. I had a fun job interview experience early in my dev career. I rocked up to the first interview in my "Developer" costume, and was shocked to find everybody dressed like bankers in crisp new suits. Yikes! Thinking about it, I guess these guys do do a bunch of work for banking clients. Better suit up for interview number two. But no. It just happened that that was the day the client happened to be in town, so the entire company had done its Serious Business impression for the day. Thus leading to the day later that week where Jason showed up for an interview in his best suit, and walked into a room full of guys in shorts and t-shirts. "Meet the team." Somehow, I still landed the gig.

jacques_chester 12y ago
I always ask what I should wear.

padobson 12y ago

The last, and best paragraph: At the end of the day, the trend toward informality doesn’t actually get away from the traditional business emphasis on appearance and presentation. It just replaces one standard with another that is, in its own way, just as obsessed with appearance. Still, insofar as this new bias emphasises—at least for some time—originality, independence, and substance over style, it serves a purpose, as Mr Thiel's anecdote highlights. The irony is that it still has to go through style to get there. When it comes to dress code, slide deck preparation, demo length vs. pitch length, and what questions to expect, the answer is always the same: know who you are pitching to. The best entrepreneur isn't the one who always wears a hoodie or always wears a suit. The best entrepreneur is the one who picks one or the other out based on who they're going to meet that day.

graham1776 12y ago

One piece I think was missing from this article is how dressing in a suit vs dressing casually affects the culture within a company. I have to wear a full suit every day to work, and I hate it. In offline conversations with co-workers, they hate it too. The formal business requirement came straight from the CEO who is of the traditional belief that our suits set us apart (whatever that means). What has resulted (along with our open office plan) is a culture that is artificially stilted, both in conversation and relationally between employees. The reason I believe this to be true is comparing "normal" formal business days with the random, once a year day where we all go on a team building exercise or have to do some physical "outside" activity and we can wear jeans and shirts. The office moral, attitude, and conversation are completely different. I don't know if there is a way to quantify exactly what I am talking about, but have noticed a distinct change in our behaviors that seem directly tied to how we dress.

logfromblammo 12y ago
I once worked at a place where the dress code mandated that all employees wear clothing bearing the company logo every day. This, of course, was widely reviled by anyone that did any actual work. The software developers analyzed a loophole and published the exploit to the local branch office. From then on, people wore whatever they liked, and just kept a logo-embroidered fleece jacket draped over their work chairs. A few bolder individuals purchased a company-logo lab coat and wore it around the office. The branch manager never reported any violation of the dress code--because technically there were no violations--but did take care to inform everyone ahead of time whenever employees from headquarters were scheduled to visit. At another job, the dress code was to wear clothing when customers were in the office. The actual median daily apparel worn in those two different offices were virtually identical. The latter simply showed greater variance in styles of dress. If I had to maintain an entire closet filled with garments that I would never want to wear anywhere outside of work, that would severely irritate me, to the extent that I would almost certainly become well acquainted with a pearl wholesaler, despite the apparent physical impossibilities involved. But it is a perfect indicator that management is willing to impose arbitrary, capricious, top-down working requirements on employees, without respect to consequences, intended or otherwise. So not only do I endorse the prejudicial maxim to not do business with suits, I extend it to teams whose dress appears suspiciously homogenous, uniform-like, or logo-emblazoned. I want to deal with people, not mooks, peons, toadies, or serfs. If I see one person on a team in a t-shirt, and another in a pinstriped dress shirt with polka-dotted bow tie, I can be reasonably certain that no one told either of those two what to wear. Especially their mothers.

robert_tweed 12y ago

I've previously summarised this as "never trust a techie in a suit." Another way to look at this has nothing to do with conformism. Whereas a suit says "I feel the need to dress to impress you", casual wear says "I don't need to dress to impress you, that's not why you're going to hire me". I have noticed a recent trend towards a sort of hipster dress code, but I'm hoping that's just a transient thing that doesn't catch on. Traditionally, the hacker dress code has been more about not caring what anyone thinks than either trying to stand out, or to fit in. I tend to follow that principle, and will perhaps go with smart jeans and a jacket for more formal meetings. There are however, environments where you're just expected to wear a suit. You have a choice of either avoiding those environments altogether, or just bite the bullet and wear a suit. Unless you are specifically trying to be non-conformist. The book "The Bluffer's Guide to Consultancy" advises that a consultant should always wear the opposite of the established dress code, so people will fear and respect you. Therefore if you are going to an office where everyone wears suits, you should dress casually. If you are going somewhere casual, you should wear a suit. It further suggests that if you are going to both types of office on the same day, you should dress as a farmer :)

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Another way to look at this has nothing to do with conformism. Whereas a suit says "I feel the need to dress to impress you", casual wear says "I don't need to dress to impress you, that's not why you're going to hire me". Except that, in any community where the maxim you state is broadly known to be applied, the actual meaning is reversed, since anyone who is aware of the maxim and wishes to dress to impress will wear casual clothes, wherease anyone aware of the maxim who continues to wear business clothes will be doing flying in the face of the maxim in the same way that someone wearing casual clothes to an interview in a more traditional environment would be.

ademarre 12y ago

Good tech founders need to be innovative, not encumbered by "the way things ought to be." It's reasonable that dress would be a valid signal of that quality, but I don't know if I'd make a rule around it.

Fuzzwah 12y ago

On the red sneaker effect: I'm a sys admin by trade. Every new job that I've started I've made a concerted effort to hunt down the other tech people around the company who are the most obviously "non-conformist". I have a near 100% success rate of quickly finding out who the most knowledgeable staff members are.

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rdl 12y ago

Everyone having uniforms (and then as contractors, having effectively a similar uniform of basically a company polo shirt or a long-sleeved safari shirt) was a huge time/effort/thought saver when working with the military. Even better, having name and organization clearly marked on the clothing, near the face, and strong indicators of levels of seniority/authority (not strictly rank/grade, but rank in specific contexts).