[potatolicious]

Disagree entirely. Silicon Valley is just as superficial as the rest of them, except the points your'e being judged from are a somewhat different set from mainstream society.

In the Valley tech scene (and all tech scenes everywhere) the respect we afford people is heavily influenced by a lot of cultural markers. Access to newfangled gadgetry, neighborhoods we live in, even freaking toe shoes. Don't have the spare time or money to hobnob with other startup types at an expensive trendy bar? Whoops.

We may hire you without these signals, we may be happy with your work. But all else being equal someone as good as you, who presents the correct cultural markers, is going to be afforded a lot more respect and leeway.

The Silicon Valley "meritocracy" is largely a myth. The subculture rejects a lot of mainstream ways of brutally judging people, which is often interpreted as our culture being less judgmental. On the contrary, we simply have formed different ways of brutally judging people. Appearance is everything, tech or otherwise.

Hell, just look at the threads on hiring every time they show up on HN. Lots of people insisting that a candidate must have a fleshed out Github account to qualify - as if activity on Github is the same thing as programming aptitude. Lots of people insisting that side projects are necessary, or participation in open source - as if those things indicate or guarantee aptitude. The brutal ageism we suffer from in this industry is also an indication of just how superficially judgmental we are.

[eropple]

I think your post hits the mark pretty well--I don't live in the Valley, hopefully never will, but the cultural markers are similar in the Boston area.

The one quibble is that I do ask for a Github account and I don't think it's the same sort of marker. It's a skill-based metric first[1], a cultural one a very distant second. Toe shoes don't provide a risk-mitigation signal. A Github profile does: it lets me see what you do. It's not unlike publishing in academia--it gives me a window into what you do, making it easier for me to hire the right person because I know what I'm getting. And I'd rather not hire than hire the wrong person, because hiring the wrong person hurts everyone.

[1] - Yes, it (probably) implies you have side projects and that you're writing open source. You're right about that. But the primary reason I want to see a Github profile is to make sure you can code.

[MarkPNeyer]

what is it about toe shoes? i always wear them - what kind of signal am i sending?

[potatolicious]

"One of us". It's tribalism. Same applies to logo hoodies, conference t-shirts, and various other things programmers do, deliberately or otherwise, to provide authenticity.

It may have started as simply being too lazy to pick out clothes from the closet, but at this point it's a full-blown subculture, with signals and counter-signals. Notice that if you walk the streets of San Francisco you can spot the tech workers incredibly easily. They're not just dressed down, they're dressed down in an very specific way. Toe shoes is one such way - they've achieved a cult status in our subculture and almost nowhere else.

[sanskritabelt]

you're signaling "I'm the kind of person who's angling for a very painful metatarsal fracture."

[MarkPNeyer]

i must disagree. i have had foot and knee problems my entire life, to the point that i never enjoyed running or doing anything althetic becuase it hurt too badly.

since i started wearing the toe shoes, i learned to become more phsyically aware. my foot pain went away, and now i run regluarly and enjoy it. it's like night and day.

if wearing toe shoes gives people foot problems, it's because they've trained their bodies to wear shoes - and we didn't evolve walking on inch-thick slabs or rubber. our bodies weren't meant for it.

[mkeener]

It's probably more because of the running surface in combination with the shoe, than the shoe alone. Using the same logic, our bodies weren't meant to run barefoot on concrete/tarmac for long periods. They're too hard.

[sanskritabelt]

I'm speaking from experience here, I bought a pair of vibrams, lost 70 pounds taking up running, and was doing great right up until I broke my metatarsal. Coming up on three years later I had to have surgery, a pin, orthotics, and I still need regular cortisone injections.

Here's a link: http://www.runnersworld.com/barefoot-running-minimalism/stud...