Facebook’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is known for wearing jeans, ostentatiously puffy sneakers, a tight medium grey t-shirt and often-times a darker grey “hoodie” with something Facebook-blue barely revealing itself between the grey t-shirt and the darker grey hoodie. (What is that, Mark: A soccer jersey?) It is not a far cry from Apple’s famous co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs who was known for dressing casually, and in the end exclusively wearing jeans, grey running shoes and a black mock turtleneck.
In most business environments today artists, engineers and other creative people look their professional best when dressed casually. In contrast senior executives and sales professionals have traditionally looked their best in more formal business attire. But cultural normalcy is still undefined in those situations where the creative and high-tech worlds intersect with the sales and senior executive roles. This was underscored recently when Mark Zuckerberg travelled east to meet with potential investors and elected to wear his signature hoodie.
Having worked in Silicon Valley as a sales executive for over fifteen years, I have certainly felt the wardrobe tension. When selling to the U.S. Federal government in the Washington DC metropolitan area, I always wore the traditional suit and tie. But in Silicon Valley, the most formal I get is the suit without a tie. Recently, when a Silicon Valley client informed me ahead of a face-to-face meeting “we don’t let anybody in the building wearing a suit” I had a wardrobe decision to make. For the curious, I chose a black “Steve Jobs” mock turtleneck with dark tan Haggar dress pants and Allen Edmonds dress shoes.
In today’s world what is most important is the ability to know just how much to adapt. A grey t-shirt would have looked silly on Steve Jobs but somehow the black mock turtleneck created an image of executive credibility, while his jeans and sneakers maintained his image as a creative genius. In my own wardrobe, I have pullovers (but not hoodies) for more casual professional interactions. I also have jeans that I had adjusted by a tailor and cashmere grey sneakers. These augment my formal suits, dress shirts and dress shoes as well as my “business casual” mock turtlenecks, dress pants and blazers.
While I do not think Mark Zuckerberg should have worn a conventional suit and tie to visit the brokers on Wall Street and the institutional investors in Boston, I do believe dressing like a teenager headed to the local skate park was far too casual for those venues, even for someone who needs to present a creative image. In those venues, Mr. Zuckerberg needed something just a little more executive in appearance. He had a broad spectrum available to him. A suit without a tie or even a “Steve Jobs” mock turtleneck above his jeans and sneakers would have done the trick.
Whether the driver behind Mr. Zuckerberg’s wardrobe decision was stubbornness, obliviousness, or insight far ahead of his time, his appearance of inflexibility risks the mid-career setback Steve Jobs suffered not long after his company went public. In my mind, the potential negative fallout from the overly casual attire was not worth the risk.
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