Except that Silicon Valley is equally superficial in different ways. Consider: founder fetishism, engineering fetishism (vs. sales/marketing/product), relative ease of getting funded as a Caltech / MIT / Stanford grad, favoring growth over revenue without coherent business plan, acting like fanboys towards YC or companies such as Uber, Google, Apple, etc.

No argument here, startup/vc fetishism is distinctly unattractive.

> Run a goddamn business,.... If you cared about image, you wouldn't talk about what people wear.

Let's change perspective - what do you think, how much success will have business with web pages that looks like from 90-ties or products that looks like they are made in basement in spare time? (sure, there are exceptions, but well, they are exceptions :P).

Everything is about image; if I'm going to invest in you, you better be shaved with ironed shirt and good suite. Simply, it's telling me you are serious about your business.

I'll challenge this statement. I stopped shaving, ironing, and wearing more than many duplicates of one outfit explicitly so I could get serious about my work. Time is my most valuable commodity, and I intend to use every moment I have attacking problems I care about. I like to think that I don't look like a slob, but by the qualities you cited, you would disqualify me off the bat, and given the rocks I've moved in my industry tenure, that would have been an absolutely misaligned signal and you would have lost out.

Everything is about image _in some professions_ and _in some eras_. I will certainly stand on the side of trying to change that through my own actions, and given that the peers and mentors I most respect have similarly chosen to discard traditional models of image, I find myself in company I'm quite comfortable with.

(And as sister posts have cited, the sheer existence of successful sites like CL, Enom, and HackerNews (which for all its minimalism and polish is by no means a "modern image"; I say this with nothing but pride to be very clear) indicates to me that even in site design image may be a cost function but is no substitute for quality. I have had clients JUMP at products that as you say, look like they're from the 90s, because they solved _real issues_ that they needed solved.)

Image still matters. It's just that it's not the same image that matters everywhere. Wall Street? Bring a suit. Silicon Valley? Go for the hoodie, or the same outfit (copy) every day.

Both signal that you're part of a specific tribe. There's a reason major tech conferences are a sea of "jeans & T" people, and it's not just the comfort.

You're completely right that image is not a substitute for quality, but when you're selling something, you ideally want a bond with the customer. So, if you sell to Wall St., look like Wall St. If you sell to engineers, look like an engineer. If you don't sell, wear whatever you like ;)

That's why HN can get away with minimalist design - it's not selling anything.

Look at it from their perspective:

"I don't know you, and you clearly don't take care of details in at least one thing you do, so why would I trust you take care of other details?"

That impression can be overcome, of course, through demonstrating skill in a particular field. But I think a lot of technical people miss the connection or somehow find the (implicit) question unfair.

Like Craigslist? Ok one example doesn't prove anything; except that not all businesses are about image.

>if I'm going to invest in you, you better be shaved with ironed shirt and good suite. Simply, it's telling me you are serious about your business.

This is still not a justification for why we are wasting time and money on appearance. If it's just to show seriousness by cost, why not demand that everyone arrive brining a bowl of dollar bills?

When someone shows up in a suit to meeting here in the bay, I instantly assume that they spent so much time on appearance to distract me from the pile of bullshit they about to unveil.

Who cares about credibility? If you're trying to sell to Wall Street, you care about credibility. If you want them to invest in your startup, you care about credibility.

If they want to sell to you, wear what you please.

Funny, they never mentioned a link between perception and sales, so it just came out like shit talking....