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

washingtonpost.com

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

#151

Post by kthejoker2 »

hadiz wrote: post #118
adamch wrote: post #100

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 h…

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.

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

#152

Post by yters »

smolder wrote: post #149
malux85 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”

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 gat…

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.

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

#153

Post by ASalazarMX »

anon9001 wrote: post #64
oppositelock wrote: post #19

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, th…

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 alw…

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.

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

#154

Post by ckrailo »

teh_infallible wrote: post #124
virtuous_signal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ou…

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.

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).

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

#155

Post by threatofrain »

gnulinux wrote: post #15
bdcravens wrote: post #5

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.

> 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.

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

#156

Post by monocularvision »

anon9001 wrote: post #11

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.

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

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

#157

Post by bdcravens »

gnulinux wrote: post #15
bdcravens wrote: post #5

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.

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.

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

#158

Post by andrei_says_ »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #58
andrei_says_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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

#159

Post by 1996 »

bb88 wrote: post #140
1996 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#160

Post by jm20 »

rchaud wrote: post #111
jm20 wrote: post #36

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 matte…

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.
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