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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 real

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
    It's like reading all of (say) pg's essays to see what he says he likes, and then adapting to it. 'pg, to his credit, has bemoaned that everything he says seems to get parsed to hell by people who want him to invest. Occasionally after I didn't get a job offer I would later stumble across a blog post by someone at the company that says "candidates must obviously do X" and I didn't do X. I could have fixed this by reading everything written by every principal at the company ever before an interview. Maybe that's how they find people who are "really interested."
- kannanvijayan 12y ago
  It's debatable whether Signalling Theory really applies to creatures who have enough coginitive ability to model thought processes in their peers. As soon as you make it publicly known that a particular selection criteria is in effect, the same salespeople you are trying to avoid will learn the new behaviour they need to adopt to meet those criteria. So now slick salesguys know not to wear suits when they pitch to Thiel. I realize the desire to develop "clever hacks" to arrive at truths, but in reality they are heuristics, and heuristics can and will be defeated by interested parties. In the long term, there is simply no substitute for doing the work of honest, stringent evaluation on the actual qualities you are looking for. This "don't take pitches from suits" is limited, temporary advice at best.
  - SilasX 12y ago
    It still has value as a "brown M&M" filter [1] where you're testing for whether they were thorough enough to follow your stated criteria, regardless of whether it has any other predictive power. Of course, even then, it's not the (non)suit per se but the fact of having done your research. [1] from the story about the band that checked whether the venue manager followed such detailed specs as not having brown M&Ms in the bowl
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      An interesting point. Then there's the question of whether people who research their potential funding sources to such a level are more or less likely to be good investments. That's a lot less clear than in the Van Halen case - here, I see plenty of arguments in both directions.
      - SilasX 12y ago
        What would be an argument for dis-correlation? I have a hard time seeing how someone better at startups would be less likely to do their homework on a potential investor, given that they'd think ahead in numerous other ways. It would have to be a situation in which think ahead for everything but this, or in which their happy-go-lucky style is miraculously good at making the right choices everywhere but here.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > The brand that goes along with a suit is, "I want to impress you by doing things excellently in the traditional way." The brand that goes along with a suit is: "I respect your time enough to have gotten dressed this morning before our meeting."
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    What does dressing up in a suit have anything to do with respecting someone's time? I'd say that respecting someone's time is actually about, you know, their time. Not being late to the meeting, not letting it run late, and so on. How much time I spend getting dressed in fancy clothing is utterly irrelevant - or at least should be.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      We're talking about signaling, right? Dressing in a suit is a signal that you thought about and planned ahead for the meeting. It's certainly more of a signal of that than it is: "I'm trying to impress you by doing things the traditional way."
      - enraged_camel 12y ago
        >>Dressing in a suit is a signal that you thought about and planned ahead for the meeting. I don't see how that equates to respecting someone's time though. It can mean you respect them, as a person, but respecting their time is a different thing, in my opinion, because, again, it is not related to their time, but yours (in the form of spending your time to get ready and look good, etc.).
        dllthomas 12y ago
        "I have prepared for the time that we're going to spend together" is respecting their time. I don't have a strong opinion on the degree to which a suit is a good signal of this.
      - tomjen3 12y ago
cynicalkane 12y ago
In fact, the original purpose of the business suit was to call attention away from the clothes. Fancy people in the UK call them "lounge suits", because they were originally for lounging with ones' friends. The 'interview suit' with its charcoal grey and boring stripey tie is the most business-appropriate item of clothing I can think of. The lines of the lapel, tie and collar call attention to your face, and the plainness of the suit calls attention away from the clothes. The primary reason it's uncool to wear it is because good, comfortable tailored suits are expensive and require a few minutes' preparation. (Yet it is still cool to wear designer jeans, drive expensive cars, &c.) I don't like the trend of streetwear becoming effectively businesswear, because it gives room for a fashion-conscious person to choose more coordinated and expressive clothes to create a greater impression, which seems inappropriate for business. Streetwear is also more distracting, the lines are less clean, and so on.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > I don't like the trend of streetwear becoming effectively businesswear, because it gives room for a fashion-conscious person to choose more coordinated and expressive clothes to create a greater impression, which seems inappropriate for business. Streetwear is also more distracting, the lines are less clean, and so on. My wife dislikes the trend because womens' streetwear also tends to be more form-fitting and sexier than what is appropriate for work. Grabbing a suit-skirt with white blouse and pearl earrings is easy. Grabbing streetwear that looks nice but doesn't draw too much attention to your body is harder.

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
  It's like reading all of (say) pg's essays to see what he says he likes, and then adapting to it. 'pg, to his credit, has bemoaned that everything he says seems to get parsed to hell by people who want him to invest. Occasionally after I didn't get a job offer I would later stumble across a blog post by someone at the company that says "candidates must obviously do X" and I didn't do X. I could have fixed this by reading everything written by every principal at the company ever before an interview. Maybe that's how they find people who are "really interested."
kannanvijayan 12y ago
It's debatable whether Signalling Theory really applies to creatures who have enough coginitive ability to model thought processes in their peers. As soon as you make it publicly known that a particular selection criteria is in effect, the same salespeople you are trying to avoid will learn the new behaviour they need to adopt to meet those criteria. So now slick salesguys know not to wear suits when they pitch to Thiel. I realize the desire to develop "clever hacks" to arrive at truths, but in reality they are heuristics, and heuristics can and will be defeated by interested parties. In the long term, there is simply no substitute for doing the work of honest, stringent evaluation on the actual qualities you are looking for. This "don't take pitches from suits" is limited, temporary advice at best.
- SilasX 12y ago
  It still has value as a "brown M&M" filter [1] where you're testing for whether they were thorough enough to follow your stated criteria, regardless of whether it has any other predictive power. Of course, even then, it's not the (non)suit per se but the fact of having done your research. [1] from the story about the band that checked whether the venue manager followed such detailed specs as not having brown M&Ms in the bowl
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    An interesting point. Then there's the question of whether people who research their potential funding sources to such a level are more or less likely to be good investments. That's a lot less clear than in the Van Halen case - here, I see plenty of arguments in both directions.
    - SilasX 12y ago
      What would be an argument for dis-correlation? I have a hard time seeing how someone better at startups would be less likely to do their homework on a potential investor, given that they'd think ahead in numerous other ways. It would have to be a situation in which think ahead for everything but this, or in which their happy-go-lucky style is miraculously good at making the right choices everywhere but here.
rayiner 12y ago
> The brand that goes along with a suit is, "I want to impress you by doing things excellently in the traditional way." The brand that goes along with a suit is: "I respect your time enough to have gotten dressed this morning before our meeting."
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  What does dressing up in a suit have anything to do with respecting someone's time? I'd say that respecting someone's time is actually about, you know, their time. Not being late to the meeting, not letting it run late, and so on. How much time I spend getting dressed in fancy clothing is utterly irrelevant - or at least should be.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    We're talking about signaling, right? Dressing in a suit is a signal that you thought about and planned ahead for the meeting. It's certainly more of a signal of that than it is: "I'm trying to impress you by doing things the traditional way."
    - enraged_camel 12y ago
      >>Dressing in a suit is a signal that you thought about and planned ahead for the meeting. I don't see how that equates to respecting someone's time though. It can mean you respect them, as a person, but respecting their time is a different thing, in my opinion, because, again, it is not related to their time, but yours (in the form of spending your time to get ready and look good, etc.).
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        "I have prepared for the time that we're going to spend together" is respecting their time. I don't have a strong opinion on the degree to which a suit is a good signal of this.
    - tomjen3 12y ago

cynicalkane 12y ago

In fact, the original purpose of the business suit was to call attention away from the clothes. Fancy people in the UK call them "lounge suits", because they were originally for lounging with ones' friends. The 'interview suit' with its charcoal grey and boring stripey tie is the most business-appropriate item of clothing I can think of. The lines of the lapel, tie and collar call attention to your face, and the plainness of the suit calls attention away from the clothes. The primary reason it's uncool to wear it is because good, comfortable tailored suits are expensive and require a few minutes' preparation. (Yet it is still cool to wear designer jeans, drive expensive cars, &c.) I don't like the trend of streetwear becoming effectively businesswear, because it gives room for a fashion-conscious person to choose more coordinated and expressive clothes to create a greater impression, which seems inappropriate for business. Streetwear is also more distracting, the lines are less clean, and so on.

rayiner 12y ago
> I don't like the trend of streetwear becoming effectively businesswear, because it gives room for a fashion-conscious person to choose more coordinated and expressive clothes to create a greater impression, which seems inappropriate for business. Streetwear is also more distracting, the lines are less clean, and so on. My wife dislikes the trend because womens' streetwear also tends to be more form-fitting and sexier than what is appropriate for work. Grabbing a suit-skirt with white blouse and pearl earrings is easy. Grabbing streetwear that looks nice but doesn't draw too much attention to your body is harder.