The no-dress-code, dress code

Google takes pride in the fact that there is no formal dress code. There are weekly TGIF events, where Google’s founders present a town hall meeting for Googlers only. (It is very impressive that they are “there” every week to share information to everyone on staff…) Larry Page and Sergey Brin appear in shorts and T-shirts. This clearly sets a tone. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is famous for going around in a hoodie. I remember earlier “business advice” was to dress for the next role you would like to assume. On any given day, if senior leadership is looking around for “whom should we promote today,” you should “look” like the executive that you aspire to be. In Silicon Valley, that probably means dramatically dressing down. If you want to become Mark Zuckerberg, and look like Mark Zuckerberg, that would mean dressing like this:

Google has recently hired a new CFO, Ruth Porat.  She comes to Google from Morgan Stanley, where she was CFO.  She appeared at a recent TGIF, dressed in jeans and a silk-looking shirt. I am betting that this is the first time she appeared in a formal company event, in blue jeans. In her previous role, she probably slept in a business suit…But now, she is dressing according to the “no dress code” dress code of Silicon Valley.

I hardly wore business suits at IBM Research. For the most part, I wore khakis and a shirt; sometimes with a sweater or jacket. Not all that fancy. I noticed here at Google that people wore (for the most parts) shorts, or jeans. Khakis seem a little too dressy.

I spent a couple of weeks working out of the Google NYC office. There, I noticed, there is a little more diversity of dress than Silicon Valley. Women in particular were likely to be wearing sleeveless sun dresses and flip flops or flat sandals. NYC chic appears to have trumped the techie environment dress-down.