"Not for him the physical cage of a suit and tie. Instead, the T-shirt, cargo shorts and sneakers, often worn with white running socks scrunched down at the ankle. And not just any T-shirt and cargo shorts, but what could seem like the baggiest, most stretched out, most slept in, most consciously unflattering T-shirts and shorts; the most unkempt bed-head. While the look may have evolved naturally, it became a signature as he rose to prominence, a look he realized was as effective at pushing the Pavlovian buttons of the watching public (and the investing community) as the Savile Row suits and Charvet ties of Wall Street.... 'It’s the ultimate billionaire white boy tech flex: I’m so above convention. I’m so special I am not subject to the same rules and propriety as everyone else.'"
Writes Vanessa Friedman in "Hey Silicon Valley, It’s Time to Wear a Suit Sam Bankman-Fried’s choices may signal an end to the schlubby mystique" (NYT)(internal quote by investor/podcaster Scott Galloway).
ADDED: I like the scene in "The Fly" where Geena Davis asks Jeff Goldblum why he always wears the same clothes. But we see that it's different but identical jackets, shirts, ties, pants, shoes — all lined up in his closet.
"Learned it from Einstein. This way I don't have to expand my thought on what I have to wear next, I just grab the next set on the rack."
The boundless mind freed from petty concerns!
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30 comments:
Trans/social progress.
"...boundless mind..."
Is it still boundless if it's in a body located in a federal penitentiary?
Btw, you don't have to be a billionaire to dress poorly.
Take me, for example : )
That's how I dress exactly but nobody is offering me money.
The rule of gravity caught him.
Men in shorts. Women in pantsuits. Gendered differences without a difference.
Diversity [dogma], too? Say it ain't so, NYT. Albinophobia is a clear and progressive condition in the ethical state.
Think Fetterman will take that advice even after the NYT claimed he was one of the people with the best style in2022?
(Another reason to think the people at the NYT have gone off the rails!)
Never. Wearing the same thing everyday is too much like DJT. They shan't be like Trump, they simply shannot.
Sensitivity counselors have been dispatched to Mz. Friedman's house, forthwith.
He dressed for the role of "tech-dweeb genius billionaire", it is the costume expected of these eccentrics. The playing of computer games while talking business is also part of the role-playing. The only way he could have done more would be to have Cheetos dust on his shrt and fingers while holding a Mt. Dew bottle.
And so costumed appropriately he was able to snow his marks.
His image was a mashup of the early hardcore computer programmer in a T-shirt living off pizza and soda and sleeping under his desk, along with the COVID lockdown couch-dwelling Robinhood game-style investors in "stonks" who freaked out Wall St. in 2021.
Gamestop (GME) buyers -- check out the price trend for the last 5 years.
Investors and impressionable people often merge fantasy and reality -- movie plots appear to come to life. In retrospect, SBF was the perfect face of the Bitcoin fad.
"billionaire white boy tech flex."
If the New York Times thinks it's fine to bring race and sex directly into this, let's dig a little deeper. Maybe there's an even more specific subgroup we can name to define Sam Bankman and other nouveau rich tech fraudsters. At what level of digging does the NYT deem it to go from OK to NOT OK?
Jeans and a black mock neck or turtleneck is so yesterday - so bourgeoise.
"It’s the ultimate billionaire white boy tech flex"
I am so sick of this knee jerk racism.
Suits are not coming back.
In case "Alexander" was too subtle, it's OK for the NYT to make digs at SBF being white. It would not have been OK to make digs at him for being Jewish. The first racism is so contemporary. The second is so last century.
I wore the same outfit in college. Strangely, no one asserted I had a "Boundless mind" freed from "Petty concerns". I was just called a lazy slob.
It probably helps that Vanessa Friedman is a white girl.
Most affected - hulking PA brute.
Most of us are hoping to see him wearing blaze orange, and soon.
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.
Steve Jobs used to wear the same outfit everyday. He did it in imitation of some Japanese guy, the Sony founder iirc. Eleanor Holmes wore the same outfit in imitation of Jobs. You've got to admit that SBF was not imitative. He didn't go for the ninja nerd look like Jobs, Holmes, Zuckerberg. He initiated a brand new look for billionaire tech founders....I don't think there will be much imitation of his style choices. They did, however, work for him at least for awhile. He looked like a much nicer guy than Jobs or Zuckerberg. Down to earth. Trustworthy....For the record, in warm weather I wear cargo shorts and t-shorts, and I'm as honest as the summer day is long. I hope people don't start stereotyping me as some kind creepy billionaire con man.
Says the NYT after naming Fetterman one of the "most stylish dressers of 2022"!
This fuckin' guy...
Donating tens of millions of dollars to politicians can be a way for CEO's to reap the benefits of misappropriating customer funds while avoiding the burdens that traditionally come with operating a multi-billion-dollar corporation.
William, cargo shorts, be careful, remember Althouse's take on shorts worn by men. Ha.
In fairness, SBF's hair is basically Einstein without the receding hairline. Or maybe Don King. Definitely one or the other.
SBF is doing Erlich Bachman (Silicon Valley (the HBO series)) without the ability to grow the weird mustache and beard.
Meh. Jeff Skilling and Andrew Fastow wore suits. Didn't stop them from scamming the public with Enron.
Bankman Fried is his name.
Fraud is his game.
Silicon Valley isn't going to wear suits. Only a very few people wear suits in California, and that's been the case for 40 years or more. My father, working as an engineer for DuPont in California in the 80s and 90s never wore a suit to the office. He kept a knotted tie on his coat rack, in case bigshots from Wilmington were visiting. The plant manager did the same.
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