The joke is that the person "saying" this is wearing their "I'm a rational, independent thinker!" tech uniform (expensive Nordic outdoors wear, so practical, so smart, so active, Vimes' boot theory, et c, not like those clowns in business wear, I'm interested in practicality not signaling, that's why I'm spending so much money signaling so hard about how rational I am).
They are visibly displaying a complete lack of personal taste, instead wearing the SV equivalent of an outdated-cut, off-the-rack navy blue (or even black, LOL) business suit.
The joke is that the message "good taste is what matters now" is being delivered by someone apparently, in a specifically SV sort of way, with a deficit of good taste.
Thanks for explaining. We don't get much of this 'uniform' here in Singapore. It's too hot for tech people to wear long trousers and long sleeves.
I guess it makes sense of a joke. Though I don't think sense in fashion correlates much with sense in technology: the guy might just be wearing what everyone else is wearing, so that his wife doesn't bug him about it and he can concentrate on the hills he's actually prepared to die on?
I don't think any wife has ever asked for this look :-)
Someone just trying to minimally not-stand-out could do so way cheaper. The high cost is part of the point (for signaling).
The other major standard look is rich-hipster: $300 Japanese jeans ("they bought the actual looms Levi's used in the '50s! It's more authentically Levi's than Levi's is now!"), $350-400 work-, jump-, or motorcycle-pattern leather boots, $150+ shirt probably in some variety of rugged wool. Corduroy or denim trucker's jacket, also with some authenticity-story and expensive. Folks adopting this look are probably a little more self-consciously into fashion than the ones who go the "walk into an REI and buy five outfits, choosing the most expensive option for everything" route.
Turns out you can get more-rational-than-thou "screw fashion" tech dorks to spend just as much money on their cookie-cutter work-uniforms as a first-year investment bank employee in lower Manhattan with their week's-worth of HF or BB suits in sober greys and blues, you just have to take a different approach.
(I am 100% guilty myself of being a sucker for "authenticity" and heritage/old-timey-quality marketing, though I do deliberately try to avoid looking like a walking trope by branching out beyond the categories of clothes like those depicted in the original joke-image; the "standard" looks are very real though, you can spot a lot of US tech workers a mile away by knowing them)
> I don't think any wife has ever asked for this look :-)
The wife wouldn't specifically ask, it's just that she doesn't bug him, when he's wearing something 'normal'. And normal is what everyone else is wearing.
> Someone just trying to minimally not-stand-out could do so way cheaper. The high cost is part of the point (for signaling).
Yes and No. You might have to spend so much just to blend in, depending on where you are. And it might not be all that much money, if you make enough.
Here in Singapore people (thankfully!) tend to dress down a lot. It's a big difference from eg Hong Kong. Flip-flops, shorts and t-shirt seem to be the norm.
I'm indulging a bit by wearing the same, but in wool. Eg from https://woolandprince.com/ but that's mostly because it deals with my copious sweat marginally better than cotton.
Btw, looking like a trope can be beneficial. Eg at tech conference, if you look like a techie you often get better treatment than when you look like some kind of influencer or (low level) manager. In normal life, signalling that you are well-off often gets you good treatment, too.
The joke is that "taste" usually implies you have some strong personal sense of self and style, but if you walked into tech offices in the bay area everyone looks like that and acts/talks the same.
So its ironic that these same people are talking about "taste" when they ostensibly have very little.
The joke is that all of the engineers that came before AI were also just following established patterns, right down to everyone wearing the same outfit to work despite our tech workplaces usually being very business casual. Implication that taste was not something these engineers had either.
This seems more telling on the artist who, I guess, believes that if you have taste in any field, it will manifest itself as wearing stylish clothes. I see their most recent blog post is analyzing luxury brands, so I think I'm on point here.
I don't mind when people want to spend a lot of money on clothing. But I mind when they judge other people for caring less.
(And as a pet peeve, I don't really understand why people can spend so much money on off-the-rack clothing and outfits? If you want to spend a lot of money, perhaps go to a tailor? But hey, it's their money, not mine.)
there’s no hard evidence here. the “99%” referenced in the article is someone’s personal subjective confidence it’s him. body buried under church is not particularly eventful news as it stands.
isn’t what cook is pointing out actually the most important thing?
a product created for the strategic purpose of expanding into a new clientele is doing exactly that. that is the win.
put another way, if the statement he said was “best launch week ever for Mac customers.” that does not speak to the entire reason for the existence of this product category. in essence, THAT would be the pointless statement.
Not really. An independent Mac company with 8% of Apple's sales would still be the #3 computer manufacturer behind Dell and HP, and Mac gross margins could easily support significantly larger investments in OS development if Apple chose to do so.
Relatively well-founded estimates will start to appear in a month or so. It's unfortunate they don't give exact model breakdowns, but everyone knows that the Mac is a hobby for them.
uh isn’t the data leaker the necessary accelerant and necessary component to validate against the rest of the ecosystem? isn’t that what triggered the communication and coordination between multiple delve customers?
evergreen.
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