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Comment by notinfuriated | Hacker News Reader

The Steve Jobs example I immediately think of when talking about imitating unnecessary behaviors are all the people who started dressing like Steve Jobs. Elizabeth Holmes and Mark Zuckerberg come to mind as people who did this in an obvious way.

But the 'asshole boss' or authority figure archetype is an old one, from long before Steve Jobs, and it can be an effective motivational tool, although many of us, myself included, don't have the stomach for it. Obligatory pop culture example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elrnAl6ygeM

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Holmes yes, so obviously so that people remarked on it. Zuckerberg? The archetype of Steve Jobs' dress code is the black turtleneck and jeans. Zuck is famous for his consistent grey t-shirt and jeans, or sometimes hoodies.

> his consistent grey t-shirt and jeans

I’m pretty sure they were talking about that consistency.

The story that I have heard, is that Jobs wore the same thing, every day, so his mind wouldn’t be “bogged down,” with minutia, like what to wear.

I think some folks also have superstitions about dress.

this story has been around for a long time, and attributed to a number of people. As a student, I came across it being said of Einstein.

It was also the explanation for the Incredible Hulk always wearing purple pants in the comics.

If I were that rich I would just pay someone to learn what kind of outfits I like and pick out my clothes for me.

You have to be really careful about these sorts of things otherwise they become like the reccomendation algorithm on youtube or something.

One stray "water is nice out of a glass bottle" or picking out the yellow m&m from a bowl turns quickly into an assistant with a list of demands like "water, glass bottle, 9.4 degress. Bowl of plain M&Ms, no more than 76 no fewer than 38, yellow only"

Steve wore the same thing every day because that’s what Japanese workers at Sony did at the time.

It was common for Japanese engineers to wear uniforms just like factory workers do. You can look up pictures from Nintendo where they’re wearing jumpsuits designing Mario.

They did, at my company. They finally made it non-compulsory (for men), about fifteen years ago, but many folks kept wearing them, anyway.

The uniforms were kind of special. They wouldn’t let us yanks, buy them.

Per my other comment, it's not the copying of the style but rather the copying of the behavior / habit:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33946519

Thanks, that makes sense and that quote you found seems to prove it.

> the people who started dressing like Steve Jobs. Elizabeth Holmes and Mark Zuckerberg come to mind as people who did this in an obvious way.

Zuckerberg was never known for copying the look of Steve Jobs. I doubt you can find multiple photos from different dates that demonstrates the claim.

Zuck wore zip hoodies and flip flops; the version of Jobs that Zuckerberg would have been exposed to did not dress that way (Jobs might have worn flip flops to work in the 1970s, given the era). Zuck wore plain, grey-blue, short sleeve shirts; Jobs did not. There isn't much to Zuck's sense of style beyond that it's simplistic and very casual - which is from the era he grew up in and how his young peers around him dressed.

Holmes by contrast did attempt to directly mimic the look of Jobs.

I'm not referring to copying the actual style but rather copying the habit of wearing the same thing as a way to avoid spending time making the decision of what to wear. This concept was written about ad nauseam about a decade ago, with Jobs as the inspiration.

I don't assume Jobs was the first one to do it, and it's certainly more conspicuous that Holmes was copying Jobs' style, but I do assume that people like Zuckerberg copied Jobs directly as a result of hearing that this was some little productivity hack for Jobs. I associate this period as the same time the 'personal brand' was becoming more popular, and people started aping Steve Jobs as a way to either deceive people just through perception or as a good faith attempt to be like Steve.

https://medium.com/swlh/why-successful-people-wear-the-same-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/highly-successful-people-lik...

https://www.ctsolutionsglobal.com/post/2019/09/12/what-do-st...

https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-productivity-hack...

Here's an article that includes a quote of Zuckerberg explaining himself, which makes my speculation less of an assumption:

https://careers.workopolis.com/advice/the-reason-mark-zucker...

> “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community. There’s actually a bunch of psychology theory that even making small decisions, around what you wear or what you eat for breakfast or things like that, they kind of make you tired and consume your energy. My view is I’m in this really lucky position where I get to wake up every day and help serve more than 1 billion people, and I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life, so that way I can dedicate all of my energy towards just building the best products and services and helping us reach our goal and achieve this mission of helping to connect everyone in the world and giving them the ability to stay connected with the people that they love and care about. So, that’s what I care about. Even though it sounds silly that that’s my reason for wearing a grey t-shirt every day, it is true.”

> He then pointed out that others throughout history have done the same, like Steve Jobs, who was usually wearing a black mock neck.

I don't think that behaviour is an attempt to mimic Steve Jobs, or any kind of signalling strategy. It's an effective strategy for minimising cognitive load and energy.

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