In Silicon Valley, some men say cosmetic procedures are essential to a career | Hacker News Reader

In Silicon Valley, some men say cosmetic procedures are essential to a career

washingtonpost.com

91 pointslxm174 comments

Other commenters may be dismissing this article as obvious, but silicon valley does have a problem, particularly in young, hip startups. These companies want to hire young, hip people, and when products being produced are very vague with no clear market, then things like image matter a lot. Juicero, comes to mind. That's fine, you don't have to work there.

However, as you get older, develop wrinkles and grey hair, that appearance of being older far outweighs your experience in initial impressions that you make. I've personally been a software engineer since 1995, quite a while now. My hair is grey, my face has wrinkles, and I'm an expert in several domains. When I go interview for a new job, it's typically by people younger and less experienced than me, since I'm definitely past the median age in this industry. I get asked questions like, "do you feel you still have relevant knowledge", or "we do things differently than in your day", or "do you think you can work in a fast paced environment", etc.

Tech is arrogant and judgmental and image matters a lot. I can understand how people might resort to plastic surgery to buy themselves a few non-judgmental years.

Sounds like an opportunity for start ups to pick up undervalues talent through some “moneyball “ approach

Good engineers are smart enough not to work at “hip” places unless it comes with a hip paycheck as well.

Not only do they only want to hire those types, but I've been in plenty of rooms where the stereotypical young engineer outright refuses to acknowledge the older people in the room, as if they're beneath him/her. They have no respect for that person's opinion, and therefore show zero respect to that person.

We've all been in rooms where someone misses the point, or says something that proves they're not keeping up with the conversation -- it happens. What's unique about people in the bay is how unforgiving and judgmental they can be about those errors, and it's only heightened if the person is above a certain age.

Yes, and this happens to women too. For those among us who are engineers, imagine your typical design review or technical meeting. When your average, male engineer who is young enough presents an idea, he is generally given the benefit of the doubt. An older engineer, or a female engineer, is not given the benefit of the doubt and must overcome an additional level of skepticism before their ideas are accepted. Having done this for a while, I've seen a lot of this. I've worked at two of the FAANG companies, and it was particularly bad there. Things actually seemed more egalitarian in the 90's, I don't think we're making progress in this area.

I think this cuts both ways. I'm getting older, but I get along really well with the fresh meat.

What works for me is to come across as an OG hacker and stay up to date on whatever the hot tech is. I'm also as immature as ever and have a pretty good command of dank memes, which I think helps more than people want to admit. I'll follow the culture wherever it goes, the same as I have since I was a teenager.

I just always try to expose myself to everything so I know what's going on, from 4chan to reddit to HN to NPR to Fox News. IMO cultural awareness is the key to appearing "young", even if your physical appearance is older.

The other way experience helps is that you don't really need to interview at unknown places if you want to work somewhere. Over time, you've built up a professional network, and you can generally switch jobs via that network, instead of walking in the front door. Having a deep specialty in something allows you to work with other such specialists.

Am similar to you in a lot of ways, you gotta be the cool kid and in the know. I know too many friends who've gone the other way, always dissing Millenials and have grown prematurely old.

TL;DR "Hello, fellow kids!"

I'm sorry, if this works for you, more power to you. I agree that you have to make an effort to keep up with the field, but keeping up with the teen culture on top of that would take a significant toll in my sanity.

I past 30 now. Most of my friends are managers but I love building things and chose to be an IC.

I think tech is very fast paced. You gotta constantly be learning. Terraform, k8s, docker, rust, js frameworks, other language paradigms, deeplearning etc

It’s a lot to learn on your own.

Places you interview may ask “have you used React / Some X tool”, the best response you can give is “yes, I’ve dabbled myself and built X prototype”. Or for core things “yes, I’ve had my fair share of experiences and contributed Y to their open source repos”

> "do you feel you still have relevant knowledge", or "we do things differently than in your day", or "do you think you can work in a fast paced environment",

This is illegal age discrimination, in my opinion. Consider suing them.

Suing is expensive, and time consuming, and stressful. It's best to move on to someplace without their attitude problem.

> Only the previous week, he says, he returned from a 10-day trip to Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Before that, he boasts, he journeyed to a yoga retreat and juice cleanse in Bali, the perfect setting to unload the stress he absorbs working at a well-known tech company in Silicon Valley. After ending a five-year marriage and shedding 10 pounds of subcutaneous fat several years back — his sun-kissed body now carb- and toxin-free — Daniel has reemerged a new, seemingly younger man.

This must be fake. This does not describe any software developer I’ve ever met. (Maybe because I’m on the east coast but engineering culture can’t be that different, can it?)

Tech worker doesn't necessarily mean software engineer.

At 48, it seems highly likely that he's in leadership.

Yeah. It does sound like a number of product managers I know.

I’ve worked both on the east coast and in Cali and California is a very different place.

> in Cali and California

What's this?

I don’t think he means Colombia, just wants to avoid reduplication.

>east coast and in Cali, and California

(or maybe a semicolon. I'm never sure)

Typing too fast on my phone.

I meant to say that I’ve worked both on the East Coast and in California, and California has a very different culture. So different that it may sound a bit strange or even ridiculous to East Coast residents.

What do you mean? Which part of it does not concur with your idea of a software developer?

I'd guess this is a bit of a West coast thing. I've known quite a few health obsessed engineers here.

I myself was very fit and usually tan, at least in summer, until I found myself a lot more other serious life responsibilities.

Children?

Thats the case with me at least ... not much time for sport anymore.

Lol, yup plus a few other things.

Some people manage to do it all but I have no idea how.

Well, I manage to do some sports with the baby. Since he is 12 kg now, running or just walking with him is sport.

But for really working out, I just lack the energy. But this is ok, other things are indeed more important. Still, I try not to forget my body.

One theory is that good looking software engineers aren't software engineers for very long.

Why would you get paid shit wages when you can be a VP of telling people what to do?

Call it the "jock-ification" of the tech world. It was bad enough when they were in high school, now they've infiltrated the tech world.

> "Call it the "jock-ification" of the tech world. It was bad enough when they were in high school, now they've infiltrated the tech world."

The "jock/nerd dichotomy" is a dumb harmful stereotype used by lazy hollywood and television writers. Many of the smartest people I've ever known were also the most athletic. There is NO inverse relationship between physical fitness and intelligence. If anything, there is a positive correlation between the two, as being healthy and well nourished makes you more likely to realize both your physical and intellectual potential.

It was obvious to the ancient Greeks, we're still getting there today. The Hollywood stereotype perpetuates the split, which definitely exists today, but also the advantages of economic specialization kind of limits you to one or the other these days.

It exists only insofar as naive children internalize and ape what they see on TV. There is no reason whatsoever that a bright child shouldn't enjoy sports, except the Disney channel tells him he must choose between reading books or exercise, when there is plenty of time in the day for both. And insofar as it discourages smart kids from exercising, it's a clearly harmful stereotype which you should refrain from reinforcing.

Real life is not a 1980s teen comedy movie, no matter how comforting out of shape engineers may find the notion.

Hollywood is a reflection on culture, not the other way around. They just make what people want to see (it's a business, after all).

Anything else is mindless conspiracy theories. There is no secret cabal pushing culture to the masses.

It's so bizarre to observe normal humans and businesses (and how organizations completely fail at any meaningful scale), and then to turn around and assume there is a hyper-intelligent, hyper-powerful secret society running things.

Instead of blaming Satan, now we have boogeymen from conspiracy theories to fulfill his role.

Thank you. Athleticism and social skills are forms of intelligence.

I found the dichotomy basically real in high school, but once I came to San Francisco, the smartest and highest-achieving people around were also ripped, or at least slender. I was never self-conscious about it in high school or college, but here I felt a lot of pressure to start exercising, and I think it's been good for me.

The high-school-like dichotomy has more to do with affect. Everyone is athletic, but you can definitely tell the boisterous business bros from the soft-spoken engineers.

> Many of the smartest people I've ever known were also the most athletic.

Many of the prettiest/handsomest people I've met were the dumbest. The more likely they are to seek popularity (think "taste-makers") as a source of income, the less likely they are to have any sort of intellectual curiosity.

>Why would you get paid shit wages

I'm not sure we're working in the same industry / living in the same world.

The managers of those well paid engineers are even more well paid

East coast journalism has a fetish for hating and describing SV engineers in the worst possible ways.

journalists compete with tech organizations for advertising dollars, so it isn't surprising they demonize their competitors.

Yes, it can.

I work on the East coast, and I've had multiple managers complain about having to work with developers on the West coast. They said it's like working with divas because they frequently refuse to attend customer meetings or keep anyone in the loop with what they're doing because they think it's beneath them.

This sounds less like a developer and more like an Adam Neumann type. So, not the worker drones who do the unsexy job of putting stuff together and making it work, but the charismatic Don Draper type who goes to pitch billionaires on the "vision".

It's California... A friend of mine who is quite attractive and _maybe_ had an extra 10 pounds moved to Southern California for grad school, and immediately felt like she was fat and started going to the gym, whereas I had never her mention her weight before. The social environment is just that different.

But that's SoCal, which is a bit different in that respect.

I'm not sure how exactly... maybe in NorCal she'd go rock climbing or something.

This just in: there's bias based on appearance. Outside of SV, being the wrong skin tone, wrong gender, not pretty enough, too pretty, not tall enough, etc are all attributes that have been unfairly affecting workers, since, well, forever.

You would have thought when you're engineer you'd only be judged based on your technical skills, your work output, performance, efficiency, ideas, design etc. Most of my team is remote so for all I know they're just those things I listed above, and a voice and a pixelated set of images Google hangouts show me. It's devastating that people still need to be discriminated in this industry.

Your list has one glaring exclusion: social skills.

If you're a brilliant programmer, but an asshole and proud of it (or unaware of it), then yes, you will not get far on your skills alone.

Whether we like it or not, we are all part of a society, and those who choose to rebel against that, well, that's thier choice and accept the consequences. (Follow up: you can't really hide behind remote work if you lack social skills. Possibly, but not very likely.)

EDIT: Snark removal.

Remote work probably makes social skills more important, because your coworkers lose the benefit of non-verbal cues. I work remotely and I try to convey a lot of personality and availability to stay integrated with the team.

Good point!

Email especially. I work with 10 different countries, and programmers from England respond differently to my word choices than programmers from China, Japan, Holland, or India.

I find I have to be painfully concise and free from humor, idiom or analogy. It's tough!

> "You would have thought when you're engineer you'd only be judged based on your technical skills [...]"

I'd not think that unless I was working with Vulcans from Star Trek. It's foolish to expect engineers to be immune from the messier irrational aspects of human interaction. I think perhaps some 'engineer types' confuse the concepts of how something should be and how it actually is. They think they should be judged solely on the quality of their work, so they mistakenly believe they will be judged so. Confusing that which should be and that which is.

> You would have thought when you're engineer you'd only be judged based on your technical skills, your work output, performance, efficiency, ideas, design etc.

The same could be said about most non-customer facing jobs. But I would expect beauty and age-based bigotry to be relevant everywhere in the world.

Keep in mind we're talking about SV jobs here, and particularly in the context of the article, where meatspace apparently still matters. In today's world, as you alluded to, it's not necessary to work that way.

80% of male attractiveness comes down having a good haircut and clothes that fit you.

Assuming you're in SF and have a high-paying software job. Find a hair stylist in a mid-range salon who you can actually talk to, show them some pictures of haircuts you like, and let them find something that works. If you find a professional and are OK paying them a bit extra, you'll get good results.

As for "clothes that fit", I have a terrible eye for that, so when I go shopping I just ask a more stylish friend to come with me, or I just ask the shop assistants a lot of questions. Again, they're professionals. They know what works.

Physical attractiveness.

The majority comes from personality and being genuinely nice of which being interested in other people is the key.

Even w/o being a hole, most dudes in tech don’t ask questions about other people. Self centered man babies.

Sure, but attractive people with shitty personalities have to lose things, whereas unattractive people with good personalities need to earn. And when there are many attractive people around, there isn't much left to earn.

This advice is throttled around here. There is an implication to this: if you're bald, you're fucking screwed as a man. Attractiveness would not be achievable.

So ..

The Rock? Jason Statham? Oscar de la Renta? Tom Ford's receding hairline?

I mean, your point is just not taken. Plenty of men wear baldness well, and plenty of men with hair do not.

I never said bald men cannot be handsome. I was saying "get a nice haircut" implies that.

This is simply untrue. The great thing about being bald is you can never have a bad haircut. Bald men, like men with long hair, or women with really short hair, appeal more to some people and less to others. But there's definitely no need to conclude you're screwed.

Physical attractiveness also matters way less for men in general. Personality and lifestyle are much more important.

Also check out https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/ - post some photos in the daily questions thread to get feedback.

Why's it always gotta be a haircut? Fuck haircuts!

When I lived and worked in SF it was hilarious to me how rapidly the culture shifted. In only 6 years, it went from a lot of competent, interesting, varied personalities, to an army of chrome backpacks, folding bikes, and brown leather boots.

Due to the vast wealth flooding there from VC coffers, people drank the Koolaid and drank it fast. I've watched people change their whole personality over night as if they constantly have their finger on the changing winds of cult personality.

Needless to say I ran for the hills. Best of luck Bay Area, you'll always have a place in my heart.

That sucks. I grew up in the bay area and haven't been around much in.. almost a decade. DANG WTF?!

Did it really change that much? lol.

Attractiveness has always affected opportunities afforded to people and other people’s perceptions of you. This is not just in tech. Hell, it influences elections! This is just human nature and has been studied extensively. It’s just trendy to bash Silicon Valley for this, because, you know, everyone on Wall Street is wearing suits for the comfort factor...

However, I think there’s an upper bounds on where that matters, and I think it mostly matters when climbing the corporate ladder. If you look at the richest men in the world, most are not supermodels.

The moral of the story - if you want to play the game you have to play by the game’s rules. Otherwise, play a different game.

Of course conformity is the reason for the suits, but I'd like to point out that if you're wearing suits 5 days a week it would be foolish to not buy a comfortable one. Good materials and a good fit can make for a very comfortable suit.

More comfortable, I dare say, than the casual attire I must wear when working for west coast tech companies, lest I not conform to west coast tech company expectations. T-shirts and hoodies lose their charm when they start to feel like a requirement. Nice silk suit trousers feel nicer than blue-jeans, if they fit well they feel as nice as pajamas, but the looks you get in a west coast tech offices when you wear such clothing are withering.

The (somewhat) new stretch denim (with 1-3% elastane) makes for amazingly comfortable jeans. If you haven't tried a pair, give them a shot.

Seconding this - picked up a great pair thrifting in Atlanta

Fully agree, that's what I wear now. It's a lot more comfortable than traditional denim, but still not quite as comfortable as the silk slacks with elastic wastes that I wear to weddings and whatnot.

Yeah, in an ideal world, I really don't give a damn what my coworkers wear. Seriously.

In a less ideal world: As long as management doesn't get the idea to mandate dress clothes or GOD FORBID business casual, I'm fine.

Fuck business casual. I will never ever ever ever wear a polo shirt. Polo shirts are for old hairy guys that play golf.

Better than a starched collar any day.

Also, unattractive people would feel like shit in this environment.

The richest men in the world didn't get rich as an employee of someone else, which is the case for most people in the article and on this board. They either created a company, inherited or married into wealth, or simply looted and pillaged it from other people.

These people make up an infinitesimally small proportion of the general population, and as such don't make for a good counter-example.

They make a good counter-example to the point of playing a different game. If you want to get rich, there are other ways to get there without having the worry about the attractiveness factor.

I am very pro-body modification. And it’s affordable to the masses now and safer with non invasive medtech.

One day...I hope in my lifetime..we will be able to have implants to download our thoughts, memories and feelings..dare I say..consciousness..or soul..into a chip.

Looking at the physical body as a vessel and getting used to the idea that it is merely necessary hardware to our mind is important.

I don’t want to create children for immortality. I want to be immortal as myself.

It’s not about hacking biology. It’s about hacking immortality. This is the first step. Tiny one. But crucial one.

Count me in! I don't want to squander my resources on anyone but myself.

As I often say, give me death or give me immortality!

I am hopeful some crypto billionaires will share the same mindset, and pour resources into anti aging research at the cellular level.

I've got bad news for both of you: you're going to die, and you won't be resurrected. So better live your lives as if every day matters.

Not bad news- I accept that by default, I'm going to lose the game. That's the "give me death" part.

Still that don't mean I won't try the other part, removing everything that could stand between me and my objective.

No kids = no college fund = more money to spend on life extending treatments if they become available

I trust the human creativity will hack death someday. The only question is whether I will be alive to see that day. If I'm not, at least I will have contributed my money to the good fight.

The question you will need to answer is what you are living for. I do have children and their college fund is a rounding error on a lifetime of expenses, if I had to live life again and could choose to add another 100 years to the life I have or have children I would definitely have children again.

Children are a way of copying DNA. They are NOT “you”.

We will have a world where expenses and money will have no meaning whatsoever. What then?

If you could have parts of your dna copied as your children and still retain you, what’s so awful about it?

I don’t have children. DNA is too random. I might if I can design my own progeny.

Or clone myself. It is also ‘technically’ ..theoretically possible to clone oneself. That’s a different discussion.

Ideally I would like different ‘skins’ that I can step in and out of ..and keep all my memories and thoughts and ‘self’.

life extension is not immortality.

Do you want to extend the life of your body or be mind-immortal? Two entirely different things.

Right now consciousness needs the physical shell to exist. What a Faustian bargain!

FWIW, I believe uploading consciousness will happen in the next 20-30 years.

Of course. Every day matters. That’s why I want to have more quality in my days. I don’t want to grow old in an aging deteriorating physical shell. Others may feel different and that’s ok.

I want life and experiences. I want to be able to control and maintain and manage my shell while still retaining the inner core of me.

Because the inner core changes if the body fails us. Women know this and feel this more acutely than men. Because. Biology.

It seems like these days men are competing with other men for resources just like women had to compete with men for resources. That’s what an overpopulated with fixed or shrinking resources/land mass will do to you.

Life extension is not resurrection. It’s not possible to bring back the dead(Russians and J.B.S.Haldane may disagree)...but to put it in simpler terms..can Entropy be reversed? Second law says no. But if only...

The only other alternative is to upload ‘consciousness’, as it were.. entropy can be slowed down. Can’t be reversed or stopped. The arrow of time travels in only one direction.

you could start with intermittent fasting. Can’t guarantee immortality but hey! It’s free.

I will provide a bit of anecdata. I went from not really fat, but kinda just mushy to my high school weight when I was ~30 and started working out and did a lot of running. The way I was treated be everyone was drastically different(better). I then had a severe foot fracture that required surgery and 12-18 month recovery. Running has proven difficult even 5 years later. I am regaining some pudge, and notice that royal treatment I used to get is not there anymore. I will also say that my mind is nowhere near as sharp. 2020 is the year I get back in shape, and will see if that makes a difference again...

Can you swim instead?

I can- but I generally dislike it. Running was a meditation for me, and I loved how I would 1) count my steps for a while until I got in the zone and then 2) time and problems would fall away.

Ive not experienced that while swimming...

I'm older than the person mentioned at the top of this article, and I've made no efforts to hide it.

I've been in the tech industry for about 27 years now, and silicon valley for the last 11. In silicon valley, I've worked at multiple startups, as well as two 'FAANG' companies.

My comp has always been very good, and I've not detected even one little hint of 'ageism' at work. In fact, my career and current work environment has never been better.

> “In Silicon Valley, it’s commonly believed that if you’re over the age of 35, you’re seen as over the hill,” said Fan, who touts himself as an expert in penile enhancement and Botox injections. “People here value the young for their passion and their ability to look at things in new ways."

These sentences cause my jaw to drop for several different reasons. Penile injections? Really?

I will say that keeping myself mentally 'fresh' in perspective and outlook takes real work, but that's just part of necessary continuing education.

In my career, I've generally targeted a 45 (on average) work week. A lot more is fine, from time to time. And I will say that I've seen quite a few of my co-workers who seemed to enjoy working way more hours than that. Some of them young, some of them older than me.

What matters at work is results.

What also matters to web sites is clicks and emotionally driven attention.

Are you saying penile enhancement and size and performance doesn’t have an affect on males? Curious female minds want to know..

I have always wanted to objectify men. I struggle to choose between their looks or bank balance or penis size. That’s why men in the past wore cod pieces. I would like it back please..

If my penis ever makes an appearance in the workplace, something has gone terrifically wrong.

I notice that you said ‘terrifically’ and not ‘terrribly’.

> Curious female minds want to know..

Well, my wife has been quite happy with my unmodified parts for 21 years now, so I don't really know one way or another. (:

She wouldn’t tell you. Have you checked the chatter with her friends?

Also: wondering if men talk to each other about their bodies and penii.

Peacocks use their tails and dance. Apes and big cats have their own male language. What do men do now?

> She wouldn’t tell you.

Oh, I suspect she would!

> wondering if men talk to each other about their bodies and penii

Not that I've seen, but I suspect my experience is pretty far from typical.

> "Daniel, who spoke on the condition that only his first name be published for fear of being outed as old.."

Daniel, I am no genius but if you are reading this, WashingtonPost story with your details hardly makes you anonymous.

- Daniel

- in his late 30s, but he’s 48 years old

- returned from a 10-day trip to Italy’s Amalfi Coast

- journeyed to a yoga retreat and juice cleanse in Bali

- ending a five-year marriage

- shedding 10 pounds of subcutaneous fat several years back

I wonder if this depends on what language you develop in. I've been working on C++ teams for the past few years, and I don't witness any age bias. If there is an age bias, it's against younger engineers, because usually older engineers are much better at C++. The classical image of a programmer is still highly respected on every team I've worked on.

Also, I am an ex division 1 wrestler, and pretty muscular, and I always felt my physique actually worked to my detriment in interviews; I take a lot of steps to not come off as a jock/meathead. I wear glasses to make myself look more like a programmer, than an athlete. Maybe there is a difference though between being in shape, and being a division 1 wrestler.

Or maybe this is mostly a west coast/silicon valley thing. I've been working out of NYC mostly. Regardless though, this article really does not resonate with my experience as a software engineer.

Maybe some 15 years ago I had a job interview. It went well and I was asked to meet the co-founders at a downtown bar. Being dressed rather casually I asked if it was appropriate attire for the bar. I was told "Actually, one of the reasons I want to hire you is because you look like what I would expect a computer geek to look like." (I'm paraphrasing, it was a long time...)

Really tired of the lazy trend in journalism where you find 2-3 "eccentric" software developers and label their lifestyle as a SV trend.

I'm being a bit hyperbolic I'm sure, but this seems to go hand in hand with the "culture fit" obsession with most interview processes. It's really just a gauge of how "cool" and "likable" the person seems. Speaking from witnessing it on both sides of the table.

I'm 57 years old and work about 8 months/year in Silicon Valley (the rest in Tel Aviv) I dye my beard (my head is shaved) and I've had work done on my face. I'm careful to stay in shape, and not be overweight. It makes a big difference in how I'm perceived.

Is your username accurate or have you moved on from Fortran?

We do CUDA/C++ mostly

The day I have to dye my beard or get plastic surgery to stay relevant in tech is the day I'll happily retire.

What you miss is you'll find it harder to prove you are relevant as you age.

On things people fresh in the industry are up on, you'll will be behind on. You might still be 100% relevant to the job at hand but you will find it harder to show.

This exists today, the only thing that will change is it will apply to you.

If you're happy to let age beat you, then it's up to you. If you are morally unhappy tech does this you should really retire today. I get plastic surgery might be considered a large step, although I think that's cultural, but it's hard to argue dying a beard is a huge price to pay.

I think all this is related to a lack of confidence. I find myself more in demand rather than less as the years pass.

So SV is slowly becoming like other large industries - you win less in value created than on internal politics - on impressing a VC instead of amazing a customer, on impressing the boss not actually managing a SLA.

Perhaps it is how SV eventually fizzles out- it must happen sometime.

SV has already fizzled out. The two biggest SV successes of recent times (Google and FB) sell advertisements and surveillance services under the guise of "connecting people" or "information discovery".

Its hot new bets are in food delivery and e-bike sharing. And even after sinking in billions there, they can't figure out how to turn a profit.

Really? I’m ugly as hell and I’m doing great. I also wouldn’t say my colleagues are unusually attractive or anything. Silicon Valley feels like a place where appearance matters less than many places to me. Am I out of touch?

Really? I moved to the Bay area from LA and all I see are out of shape, badly dressed tech workers. Blame it on all the free food and high-stress lifestyle.

I’m going to call bull shit. Im old by sv standards (38) and the only things I worry about is the quality of my code and quality of my ideas.

Be tall and attractive is _literally_ the advice people are giving in this thread, and it doesn't even seem that tongue-in-cheek.

It's not tougue-in-cheek. Data shows that attractive people have better careers.

Appearing fit and healthy, especially for your age, is like activating easy mode for life in general.

I've yet to see a down side, other than losing the short-lived pleasures of eating garbage food constantly. But the novelty of that wore off long ago, it pales in comparison to an active and healthy lifestyle.

- Formerly overweight/borderline obese person enjoying an ideal BMI for over a decade now.

I'm pretty convinced that the most important thing you can do for your career after achieving basic technical competence is to be more attractive, both physically and socially.

The reality is that you're going to have an easier time making connections and getting access to opportunities if you're well-mannered, sociable, and attractive.

This is absolutely true and applies to more than just your career. When I was fatter vs when I was in shape I’ve noticed huge differences in how strangers treat me and how much acquaintances want to get to know me.

I've been big most of my life, for a few years I managed to drop 100lbs and unfortunately gained it all back. It's staggering how differently people treat you, whether they realize it or not.

Also, be tall, that doesn't hurt.

Interesting story about China and leg lengthening procedures.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&obj...

I have a suspicion that there may be a cultural difference in posture between the West and China.

I’ve been practicing a Chinese martial art for half a decade, and in the last few years I’ve gotten incredulous looks a handful of times when I tell someone my height. I do not stand rail straight anymore, I hate shoes with lifts in them because they throw off my balance. I am in effect shorter than I was, which puts me at the high end of average in the eyes of people who are below average height (who do stand up, and don’t mind 1 inch heels).

India, too I’ve heard.

Not interesting, just light on facts. It says the procedure is now banned for cosmetic reasons after a few patients were "disfigured".

How where they disfigured, since the legs are as far apart as can be from the face?

If it's the leg that looks ugly afterwards, can't the leg be fixed? Was there a bone problem? An infection ??

I don't think I would go that fact personally, but if there was something possible for the chest, I would seriously consider it.

Pumping iron can only take you so far. The bones underneath set the actual limit.

No offense, but one of the weird things about HN in general is that commenters can't find apparently relatively easily google-able facts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/15/gender.uk

I read articles, but I don't google. Thanks for the link.

> Each leg now bears eight circular scars, each half an inch in diameter, from the screws that were removed. But now, three inches taller than before, Susan says she would not hesitate to recommend the procedure to her friends.

That is all I need to know. Patient satisfied, and would recommend the procedure.

It's also not a bad idea to be rich, and whatever the most desirable gender and ethnicity are for your area, but those things are less actionable than social skills, fitness, and beauty.

beauty is not achievable.

Sure it is! Cosmetics are an enormous industry for this reason. For men, it's more about having a proper haircut, facial hair that suits your bone structure (which is kind of men's makeup), clothes that fit, and good posture.

If you don't believe me, consult with some of your more attractive friends, and have yourself a makeover day to try it out. You can look like a million bucks for the cost of a haircut and a new outfit. Even if you're out of shape, you can present yourself just fine.

If you're feeling really brave, doll yourself up as nicely as you can, and consult a forum (not HN) on your appearance. Reddit has a few communities that do this sort of thing. You can dial yourself in to what most people would considered "beautiful" pretty quickly if you want to do it.

There's a lot of money to be made in convincing people otherwise.

- Plastic surgery: ~$18B in the US in 2019

- Cosmetics: ~$55B in the US in 2019

I started by growing vegetables. Money pit. Then I started growing lavender and aromatics for essential oil distillation. It’s for cosmetic purposes and perfumery. Much higher margin.

Go figure..people would spend more for perfume than for their food. Why? Because. Markets.

It’s ok. If you work with pigs, you have to roll in pig poop. It’s already established what we do the minute we start selling..it’s only a matter of branding and marketing.

I am a little lucky in that I still get to work amidst plants and nature that is my secret pleasure. It’s the selling part that I abhor. But..needs must..etc..

Just out of curiosity, how much do you have to grow to sell and where do you sell it?

Is that the kind of thing you could do in your backyard for a side business, or do you have to have acres of property?

Not sure if it's a farm->wholesaler or backyard->ebay or maybe backyard->shopify.

I lease land..I farm about 3 acres. You could..in theory..make $40k/acre gross if you have markets, capital and land. It’s tricky if you don’t own land, not enough start up capital and people to work for minimum wage. I could also buy 100 acres of orchard ..nuts or stone fruit or citrus and outsource management. I am still farming. It’s more stable. It’s still a farm and you get deductions and land appreciates and machinery depreciates etc.

For me, it wasn’t worth selling kale and lettuce(need a cooler) and find people to work. I paid more than minimum wage (15-25/hour), but that’s not a liveable wage and even that was eating into my margins. And food is plentiful and cheaper at super markets. So what’s the point? Consider this: insurance is same if you are one acre or 20 acres. CCOF certification costs the same. Machinery and capital costs are fixed. Even if farmers markets are profitable, you have two people working 8 hours at minimum wage and need set up equipment and fees etc.

Yes, it can be done in the backyard etc if you have enough space and you have to operate as a farm. Mostly to make sure you follow food safety rules(it is important), but it becomes too much when you are selling wholesale(less than at csa and farmers market) but at volume. You need different set of certifications and audits.

All in all, due to economies of scale, I think you’d need at least 20-40 acres for economies of scale to kick in and you want to do it in an environmentally safe way. Better if you own as you build equity and have land security.

But I also feel like it’s only worth it if you can automate labour ..at least partially. That’s why I feel farm automation and robotics should focus on small acreage farms where they need it and not in commercial large corporate owned farms or commodity crop producing farms that are already hyper optimized and scaled to capture every marginal gain.

Again. Where you are matters. Whether you own the property matters. Markets matter. Even if I had 40 acres, I won’t grow for market if I can’t automate. The numbers don’t add up. I am too old to be romantic about farming as rolling in the hay and yodeling to cows. Also, I studied to be an accountant. I am brutal with numbers crunching. It killed all the farm romance before it even sprouted.

As I get older, I am more interested in what’s achievable with ‘beauty’(a loaded term).

There is a lot we take for granted when young. And things we don’t notice. Like gravity, for example..

Well, these days, being attractive conflates with being already tall.

https://news.yahoo.com/men-paying-76-000-limb-155514396.html : just read this..what a coincidence!

[..] Some men and a few women are getting plastic surgery to lengthen their limbs and grow up to six inches taller.

Dr. Kevin Debiparshad, founding surgeon at The LimbplastX Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada, has performed this procedure on more than 30 people since opening his practice in 2018.

The two-hour, $76,000 procedure involves minor breaks in the leg bones, nails and screws, and physical therapy. It takes a full year to see the end results.

Some patients may lose some athletic ability, and a psychologist previously told Insider "cosmetic procedures don't have a lasting effect on people's positive body images nor their general well-being." [..]

Reminded me of https://jezebel.com/stories-about-my-brother-1835651181

Very sad. I am going to say something here against my better judgement.

I have a genetic condition that puts me at a higher risk for DVT. It’s a not uncommon mutation called Factor V Leiden. I saw it in my 23 and me report that I ordered when 23andMe just got started. We are talking over a decade ago. There were a lot more reports than what’s given out now.

I had to stop my doctors from prescribing meds and procedures because of the genetic report. I also took a definitive test that mentions the mutation in my permanent record so it is considered in the future prescriptions and I suspect this would be useful as I get older.

This is where genetic tests like 23andMe can be useful. It’s not definitive but it would help to determine how to steer your health future.

Having said that, privacy trumps. I do not approve of sharing personal information by companies like 23andMe and esp to drug companies and insurance companies.

Also. These reports are not infallible. They keep trying to connect me with fifth cousins with whom I have less in common than I do with fruit flies. They also seem to think that I have Finnish ancestors when I can trace back my ancestry to south India for the past few centuries. It can be an imperfect ‘science’.

Circling back, this young man probably could have benefitted from a genetic screening.

Yes, totally. I notice a significant difference in how I'm treated, and even perceived technical proficiency, based on whether I'm in shape or not. Being well groomed also helps, but being in shape with sharply defined facial features seems the most significant thing. Losing the glasses and wearing contacts helps, too.

OTOH, if I want to get by based on actual technical merits instead of outward attractiveness, then best to optimize technical and communication skills. Physical appearance comes and goes, but the latter have more staying power.

It not totally superficial - a good haircut, shaved face, groomed nose hair, groomed ear hair, nice, clean ironed clothes and good shoes is signalling - it’s saying “All the little things have been dealt with and I have attention to detail - and I am also wise enough to acknowledge that this is signalling and I’m willing to play the game”

True, and it is easier to workout for a half hour everyday and buy a nice pair of clothes, than spend hours coding and pouring through tech docs, which also works into the signaling of 'I work smarter, not harder'.

OTOH, the actual engineers see through all the external signaling, which I've also discovered :) :P Or rather, the external signaling can work in the opposite direction with engineers.

At any rate, the big take away is it's ultimately about signaling one way or another, and knowledge about social signaling is probably most valuable for career advancement. Which can make a person cynical about the whole thing if one don't take such insight with moderation.

> OTOH, the actual engineers see through all the external signaling, which I've also discovered :) :P Or rather, the external signaling can work in the opposite direction with engineers.

I think it's important to disambiguate the two. People often believe themselves to be the former, when they have frequently fallen into the trap of the latter. Adopting counter-cultural signaling is not the same as being above signaling, but it's an easy thing to confuse.

Especially when confusing the two is a sop to the ego.

Yes, each social group has their own brand of social signaling, some defined by the social signaling of another group, even mutually so. Career minded ladder climbers try to disambiguate themselves from the worker bees, and visa versa.

The pragmatism of investing in the superficial to satisfy other people's expectations does not make it less superficial.

We waste an absurd amount of time fretting over image collectively for one reason: to satisfy each others need to judge things by their covers --IOW, to satisfy each others need to make flawed judgements.

It's wise for one person to care about their image, but not for a whole group of people to gatekeep the way we do based on aesthetics. The relevance of a suit and tie is self perpetuating, something like "I got hazed when I joined this fraternity, so the new recruits should get hazed, too."

It's an easy thing for a third party to check, easier than evaluating technical skill, and easy for a motivated person to fulfill. As such, it also serves as an easy filter that has a lot of false negatives, but probably fewer false positives than a non-subject matter expert trying to evaluate expertise.

It also signals consideration for other human beings, not expecting them to jump through a bunch of expertise evaluating hoops, but instead allowing them to rely a commonly agreed upon and decently useful signal. Consideration for others is yet one more important thing to signal.

It's circular to call that considerate. You're saying it's useful because people care, I'm saying people care about something useless.

You can apply the same logic to an obese person as chronically under-dressed/fashion-averse one: They ought to be considerate enough to show their attention to detail through managing their health better and careful calorie intake.

I stand by my point that it's a shortcoming of our culture that we give those signals (i.e. "t-shirts aren't very professional!") any weight at all.

I won't claim an inverse trend but I've worked with enough relatively-useless and very well dressed people that it's basically noise.

Judging appearances is useful as a very low level check, so I wouldn't say it is completely useless, though I agree it is over emphasized.

I wonder how this all fits in with the recent trend towards Stoicism in Silicon Valley:

From Epictetus, a father of Stoicism

>1. Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

>The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you.

>23. If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, so as to wish to please anyone, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life.

The Stoicism is being dished out by the billionaires(Jack Dorsey comes to mind), who have already made it, and want to somehow appear above all worldly things to the masses.

It seems rather disempowering to include “body” in the list of things not under your control. That control is not complete, but it exists to an extent.

He definitely is referring more to things like disabilities and diseases, not necessarily fitness and beauty.

But to his point more generally: if you can control it, do so. If you cannot, don't pretend that you can.

My understanding is that control of your own body is through your mental model of your body, not directly asking individual muscles to contract. (This is why people get phantom limb issues after amputation.)

In that context, I think it makes sense to include body in the list of things not under your control (you can only control the actions you ask your body to do, not what your body actually does or the per-muscle detail of how it does it).

> recent trend towards Stoicism in Silicon Valley

What trend? I haven't noticed this at all

It follows that in any group of people equally advanced in their career, the worst dressed most socially awkward person likely has the highest skill. After all they need to balance the deficit with something to get equally far.

https://brilliant.org/wiki/berksons-paradox/

If you're choosing a doctor, choose the one who looks like a butcher instead of the one that looks like a doctor. He's more likely to be good at what he does.

Nassim Taleb talks about this concept in his books.[0]

Edit: Here it is – https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surg...

Maybe on average across many fields and job positions? But I definitely don't believe this as a universalism. The "catalog chic", gym culture and dieting trend in SV is fairly new. 20 years ago it was graybeard chic. Alan Cox was an icon. Pictures of the Google team from the 2000s are a bunch of poorly kempt nerds. And into today lots of engineering teams don't give a shit about looks and look squarely for competence. Honestly if I see an engineering team of sexy well groomed people it raises at least a bit of skepticism that these people, in addition to driving a culture of being good looking and we'll groomed, might also care about technical excellence. That's not to say that I discriminate. But whole eng teams self selecting to be sexy (and I have company profile links I could post here but I won't) raises questions about where the core emphasis is when hiring.

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tv-funhouse-se...

What a weasel-worded title!

Better title: "In some places, some people say some things"

That's not what a weasel word is. Weasel words are things like "potentially" and "possibly" that you can put into otherwise declaratory statements so that when you're shown to be wrong you can fall back on "well I said possibly!" or similar.

Saying "some men" is a pretty weasely phrasing. "Some" could mean 2. It could mean millions!

I bet "some men in Silicon Valley" are doing all kinds of things. Some men in Silicon Valley enjoy eating Durian. Some men in Silicon Valley enjoy being punched in the testicles. That doesn't mean anything, though.

I haven't read TFA because the title alone is horrific enough, but it sounds awfully like a what PG calls a "submarine".

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Nothing new here? It's just a basic human factor? Not only essential for the career, even interviews go a lot smoother if you are a pleasant to look at, deal with. It's the first impression that gets you ahead. If you are competent enough not to ruin it by talking, you are golden!

Still, surgeries is kind of extreme, but lets be honest, even some basic things like a shower and deodorant can help a lot of devs.

I find it interesting we know your name matters but we don't hear much about changing it.

I know people from overseas for instance will pick a local name, but often it's not optimised, just something picked slightly at random.

It's also fully reversible.

> Only the previous week, he says, he returned from a 10-day trip to Italy’s Amalfi Coast

We really need to start CO2 emissions from flying / day of vacation, because 10 days to Italy is really ridiculous.

How about four days in Nepal for a wedding, from California, because "status"

Some of us have families that can’t get visas to the States trivially. Lighten up, Francis.

Wouldn't you prefer _longer_ vacations? With shorter vacations you're incurring the carbon cost for flights for less value. Unless that's what you were implying.

They were making a joke about the phrasing because it sounds like it was 10 days of travel to reach Italy.

It's bloody obvious now that you mention it and I feel like an idiot for having missed it haha.

Sounds relaxing... wish I could relax.

assuming you plan to return does it matter if the trip is 1 day, 10 days, 100 days? you still have two flights.

They were making a joke about the phrasing because it sounds like it was 10 days of travel to reach Italy.

Perfect example of a Dad joke, however.

you can fit a lot more 10-day trips into 365 days than 100-day trips

Personal benefit versus cost to the planet ? You’re emitting 10x less CO2 per day if you stay there 10x as long :-)

Based on my experience, the headline is right. The money I spent was dwarfed by the extra money I made afterwards. It is just my own experience, but I think it is a cool hack: look the part to get more money.

To give more details, after having studied skin care a bit with the help of google scholar and reddit, I came to the conclusion that wrinkles are multifactorial and due to: - facial fat depletion : https://www.patelplasticsurgery.com/uploads/5/2/8/8/52880409... - change in the collagen structure, with less elasticity, likely purely due to sun damage - gravity pulling the damaged tissue down

For facial fat depletion, there is fat transfer. For the effect of gravity, there is facelifts. Both work wonder.

For changes in the skin structure however, I have tried non fractional CO2 resurfacing, which is said to be much more effective than fraxel. But it did not give drastic results unlike the 2 others.

The article talks about RF microneedling. I wonder if someone here on HN tried, and could comment about the procedure.

I'm thinking about doing that myself next time I travel. Other alternatives are "vampire microneedling", where basically PRP is put on the skin then microneedling is done in the hope that some growth factors will seep though.

The reddit skincare community is wonderful - lots of crazy smart people digging article and testing on themselves, a genuine hacker spirit. I tried one of their suggestions that seemed crazy at the time: acetylsalycilic acid to reduce skin oilyness. It was so simple, so cheap, yet so efficient!

Now I am going to test a skin routine to fix my skin texture: niacin serum in the morning, then sunscreen, and retinol at night, then moisturizer.

It's fun to consider the body has a computer than you can upgrad with surgeries or hack with chemicals applied on the skin!

PRP has good reviews. A friend tried it recently and said it actually started baby hair growth near hairline..so I guess it basically increases blood flow.. If I had some spare change laying around, I would invest in cosmetic start ups. Especially those that are non invasive. Ways to determine which procedure is best suited for each person. AI to customize treatments. Etc. Phone apps too esp with the really nifty cameras that come with smart phones these days.

Deceim ..a Canadian cosmetic company has affordable products and I am a fan of many their basic products altho some are pretty hard core. I won’t use anything with retinol for example. I work in the farm and under the sun. So I have to be careful. Maybe when I retire from farming.

I agree. Body hacking is true hacker spirit. I encourage people to experiment and hack away.

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