This dress code, much like “Oracle consulting”, has gone out of style.
In case anyone is interested, Alan Flusser's book, "Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion," provides a good background on the history of men's formal dress and why certain things are the way they are. Certainly, we can disagree as to whether it should be important, but clothing is a language, so we might as well understand what we're saying in a particular context.
...so you mean out of style?
It is a signalling of a maverick industry so powerful it can succeed without the approval or gatekeeping of stuffy banks etc. It is a huge middle finger to The Establishment.
Think of how YC began with the idea of two guys in a cheap apartment seeking to be ramen profitable. I will suggest it is no coincidence that I have read that Paul Graham is fond of (iirc) cargo shorts and sandals. It's a hugely self entitled position that his personal comfort matters vastly more than the opinions of gatekeepers.
There are good psychological reasons for enforcing it as an industrywide standard. You don't want people eroding that mindset of the industry or altering that social contract.
> There are good psychological reasons for enforcing it as an industrywide standard. You don't want people eroding that mindset of the industry or altering that social contract.
If you dig into these two paragraphs a bit, you’ll see they’re incompatible. You’re just trading one establishment for a new one, which is evidently just a susceptible to gatekeeping and biases as the old one.
It still refuses to curry favor with the old establishment.