Here we have a company that has cobranded with others in the past, but over time there has been a sentiment shift and now it wishes to distance itself from what this particular area of society reflects.
It's interesting because it is sort of a rebrand for Patagonia to move away from this market. I have no idea if the numbers of cobranded vests are large and material on their revenue. If I had to guess I would probably say no. However, the public sentiment on this and seeing these vests on wall st and in VC circles could be actually a potentially damaging blow to the brand. One that was originally self inflicted.
Based on them looking to move away from this I would have to guess that they aren't really happy with this direction. Kind of like the Colin Kaepernick ads with Nike, though on a much smaller scale.
Well it's a smart move. They are simply protecting the integrity of their brand. They built a reputation based on a set of corporate values that are not necessarily aligned with those companies that embroider their logo in those vests.
They probably don't make a lot of money from those corporate sales either.
Any risk of damaging the brand by association is not worth it.
I think it actually went over yours (from the article):
>"A representative for Patagonia confirmed it has recently changed its policy, but declined to say exactly when this change happened. Here is the company’s statement:
“Our corporate sales program manages Patagonia’s sales to other companies, non-profits and other organizations. We recently shifted the focus of this program to increase the number of Certified B Corporations, 1% For The Planet members and other mission-driven companies that prioritize the planet. This shift does not affect current customers in our corporate sales program.”"
I am so happy to see this. I have supported Patagonia as a consumer due to their commitment to corporate responsibility, specifically their (more) ethical clothing manufacturing practices.
When I’m in the Bay Area and see every private equity bro wearing a Patagonia fleece, it makes me wonder if they are supporting the brand for the same reason.
Ultimately it shouldn’t matter. But I’d rather be associated with the responsibly sourced clothing brand than the financial engineering brand.
I don't think it's 'ethics' - rather than they are just trying to avoid any kind of controversy.
Let's get real folks: it's just a totally synthetic fleece in a totally commodity package. There's nothing really special about Patagonia. It's just a brand.
I'd buy it because I like the design, possibly, not because of their corporate positioning / PR spin.
Lots of finance meme accounts reflect the "Patagucci" culture of finance - check out these - they frequently showcase "sleds" - $300+ (frankly, tasteless) Gucci and Ferragamo shoes that are sort of a "post-intern" status symbol. I follow these accounts to try and have a pulse on when the next recession will hit.
Yeah, $300's like entry-level for good shoes if you're not importing from somewhere cheap (might get down into the neighborhood of $200 then) or shopping seconds or other bargains (again, down around $200). Or buying used I guess, which is A Thing.
I hope this (and Nike with Kaepernick) is the start of a wave in society calling companies to task over advertising shilling.
Personally, and I've expressed this numerous times, I find advertising to be absolutely devastating on the efficiency of modern society so... let's de-brand everything wee!
Contrary to the misconceptions of many people who have never actually lived in the Soviet Union, there were multiple, competing brands of consumer goods, all the way from radios, to automobiles [1] and refrigerators.
[1] Off that list, of course, automobiles were very difficult to obtain.
I see your tongue in your cheek; nonetheless, I have struggled with the very idea you entertain. Marking that a product comes from a particular place allows the non knowledgeable person to find more of that thing. A separate-but-related idea is that of advertising, i.e. putting the idea of a product out there separately from the good itself. Nobody thinks they like it, but I know that some of the more meaningful experiences in my life (finding local improv, for instance) have come as a result of effective advertisement.
I suppose the problem is not that advertisement or branding exists at all --- but how it exists today. I don't know if this is the "resting state" of advertisement/branding or not.
Advertising, at it's best, informs consumers of choice - if this were the type of advertising we saw in the modern world that's fine - posting a DIY tool shed build and including links to specific tools that might be useful is helpful, and I think that's why we've seen sponsored content come into prominence, briefly be useful, and then get swarmed by BS.
We need to find some way, societally, to limit how much of this wave'o'advertising we're exposed to - to place a value on time and remove the "cold call" style of advertising pitches. I was optimistic about ad-words when it first rolled out because, given the context awareness and unobtrusiveness, I thought it might kill advertising dead - and it sort of did. We no longer have the "Shoot the pirate" flash banner ads, nor the popups for v1agr4 since that over the top attention grab ended up being pushed out by more relevant product advertising... but we're backsliding again.
If you're an advertiser and I raise my hand and say "I'm looking for a power drill" or even "I'm looking for something to do on saturday" then feel free to make your case - but this unsolicited BS is like the bane that once was door-to-door salesmen, it's actually a hilariously parallel - your time is being taken, something is invading your private space and you're being interrupted from doing something you'd like to do to listen to someone shill.
I'm curious why you think ads are so bad for efficiency. By and large, I only encounter ads in my "free time" and I'm consuming content, i.e. not while at work. Annoying to be sure, but not something that wastes my productive time.
Not my comment, but possibly they were thinking around the idea of modern advertising causing overall less rational economic decisions to be made by polluting the market with more objectively false information than true (resulting in products and services being purchased where the utility gained for the price is not maximised). As a hypothetical example, if a particularly effective marketing campaign resulted in the market preferring a particular poor quality lightbulb over an equally priced but better quality alternative, there would be an economy-wide misallocation of resources into building poor quality lightbulbs.
Actually I was more referring to the effect that constant advertising has on our attention span and possibly even our society at large.
We know we are constantly being fed B.S. so reading something with an open mind is difficult in the modern world, chances are there's some sort of sponsored content push in there somewhere - so we skim read before reading to check for ads, then we stop doing that second step and just take a surface scan of data. Our brains are so constantly bombarded with advertising that we're now receiving advertising, occasionally, for retreats where we can get away from all the advertising and noise of the modern world.
I have a personal, lovely example for this which is so beautifully clear - sandwich boards. Sandwich boards are those tilted sidewalk signs that shops put out for anyone who isn't aware, they can cause a moderate increase in traffic to a store because they're annoying - specifically. Signs that are hung from an awning above a shop don't obstruct people so their attention doesn't catch them as often, while as sandwich boards are more than happy to block half the sidewalk and force you to walk around them in an effort to be noticed - their usage is valid when indicating a temporary state, since the cost of hanging an awning sign to let people know that the ping-pong tournament has been moved down the street is silly and often not an option - but when that board is just advertising an establishment (even if doing that advertising by letting you know about a sale) then they can often be seen below an awning sign that is perfectly visible from the same angle (window painting and displays tend to be less visible to pedestrians so there is a valid reason to have some angled description of your business)
So, let's do away with all these sandwich boards - they exist for no reason other than to annoy us and get in our way. They occasionally make narrow sidewalks difficult to traverse for people with walkers or wheelchairs and what, as a society, are we getting for that cost? Nothing.
Sandwich boards are a beautiful example of this since so many of us encounter them daily, but lots of other advertising goes out of it's way to be obtrusive, to steal some of your mind's attention (jingles) or to be visually distracting (flashy banner ads). This shit has costs that we all pay, and the value we, as a society, reap for paying that cost is dwarfed by the cost - people are already spending almost all their money constantly so this advertising war isn't to make sure people make informed choices, it's to steal the sale away from a different product.
I love the freedom that capitalism enable as clearly seen here. At the same time, I wonder where the lines are between being consistent to your organizational values, virtue signaling.
Now, virtue signaling is nothing new. Humans have expressed their moral values for a very very long time. Governments too, and of course companies as seen here. Where it might get sticky and dangerous is virtue signaling by technology companies that functions as utility company to certain aspects of the internet. At that intersection, one organization's virtue signaling is another's free speech ban.
I just want a jacket. I don't care about the political opinions of some outdoor clothing company has deemed fashionable/safe enough to get behind.
That said, it's always great when company's give to charity out of good will. My only problem is pushing 'social good' narratives for internet points among online slacktivists.
This drives me up a wall. This is nowhere near "virtue signaling". Virtue signaling is cheap superficial attempts to boost a reputation by attaching to a movement. Turning down all future deals from the oil and financial tech sectors is not cheap or superficial.
Know what real virtue signaling looks like? Crying "virtue signaling!" whenever you see anyone take a principled stand for something. We get it, you know the fancy word and you hate liberalism, I'm sure your fellow reactionaries are very proud of you.
I actually applaud the company for staying true to their organization's moral values. And I'm grateful for the freedom they have to choose to do so, so I'm actually a liberal.
That said, only certain companies are able to take advantage of virtue signaling in branding. In retail, it will typically be the brands like in this case. They are the endpoint of a very long supply chain. And perhaps that's good enough for a customer – to only need to navigate the values the various brands advertise. Going deeper will be way beyond any consumer, the number of organizations and their moral values to navigate becomes overwhelming.
Take something as simple as a pencil, try to navigate the values of the multitude of organizations involved in producing a single pencil.
This isn't Pepsi running an ad campaign that says "give someone a soft drink, it'll make their racism go away".
They are turning down business and a denying a significant portion of the brand identity that they have constructed in order to make a point and course-correct to be more true to their values.
To call this virtue signalling is to betray either a fundamental misunderstanding of what "virtue signaling" means, or a bad-faith attempt to plaster any progressive sentiment as phony.
Didn't you get the memo? Anybody who expresses a desire for a better world is virtue signaling. The only honest people are those who adore and defend the status quo.
Patagonia, more so than most brands, is the wrong target for a "virtue signaling" label. They've made many bets[0] and decisions[1] over the years that directly increased costs or decreased revenue to stay true to their mission. It's baked into their history.
From what I have gathered, reason vests are popular in SF is due to daily weather fluctuations since they are light weight. I did not know they were popular in other cities/metros too. Especially in finance sector.
One of the only interesting observations in the (awful, just awful, I cannot emphasize enough how bad it is) sequel to The Prep Handbook is that synthetic fleece had, since the first book, became a hugely popular exception to the usual prep-set rule of "no synthetics", largely for practical reasons (at least at first). I wouldn't be surprised if it's a bit of dressed-down prep fashion being expressed or imitated, at least by a certain set of the folks wearing it. Finance'd be the right crowd for that.
[EDIT] that is, The Official Preppy Handbook. The sequel's called True Prep and is, again, awful, do not read it, it has none of the fun, well-voiced humor of the first, it's bad, bad, bad.
I work in finance (in the midwest), and for some reason, all of the offices I've worked in seem to be kept at an unreasonably low temp, like 68F or lower year-round. That would be fine if I was active, but I'm sitting at a computer from 830a-500p. I've routinely been cold enough to start shivering or to lose dexterity in my hands as they stiffen from the cold.
I can't wear sweatshirts at my current job, but used to at my 3 previous jobs. Now, it's a button down shirt and either a sweater or vest. Ive plenty of both, but none corporate branded.
Vests are nice in that they can easily be removed and put back on.
Most of my sweaters are partial zip. I can't easily remove one without my shirt and undershirt coming with it (I'm a guy, but I still think its rude to go flashing my bare chest & back in an office).
Um, you guys... the PR firm that uncovered this alleged plot is called - wait for it - “Vested”.
“Kim, president of the communications agency Vested (the reference is to the finance term, not the sleeveless layer), attempted to place an order for a client...”
Their website is www.fullyvested.com and their recruiting page is titled In-Vested. Get it? In Vested.
Scroll down the article to the satirical Instagram post with a new definition of “Divest” involving “guys named Chad.”
Announcing it yesterday would have made the prank too obvious.
Hats off to the creative director at Vested for pulling off a masterful stroke of guerilla marketing. Now they are on the radar of tons of finance firms who know that this firm “feels their pain,” so to speak. Well played on all fronts.
Yeah, I saw the denial... I was still skeptical. But I found what appears to be confirmation by Patagonia: https://twitter.com/patagonia/status/1113110848778768384
So at this point I guess I am forced to concede that this is legit, and the fact that this emerged from a company named "Vested" on April Fools is just an absurd coincidence. My bad.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt" <== my motto, due to situations like this
Nothing here indicates a prank to me. The Instagram post was from half a year ago and is from an account that semi-famous in NY for making fun of finance bros. The author just included it as an example of how the vest is associated with finance culture.
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? It's Poe's Law but with reputational damage if you guess wrong in the wrong situation. Take it seriously and it wasn't? You're a buffoon. Take it as a joke when it's serious? You're an insensitive asshole and a bigot, and nobody can make the case you were acting in good faith and made a mistake.
The dangers of engaging with satire are very real. However the costs paid are generally short-lived and to the open-minded and those able to find humor in themselves, repaid in full if not in excess.
That's her writing style. I think it's a bit of satire. She once wrote an article about something I did and it was as hyperbolic. It was a mix of "WTF are you talking about?" and "Well, that's actually kind of funny".
It's pretty clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek. In "researching" power vests she wore a L.L.Bean fleece vest from 1995, I wouldn't exactly call it overly subtle. Maybe a bit of introspection about why you found the writing upsetting instead of funny is in order?
The article is rather tongue-in-cheek, but it's also not wrong.
> The Power Vest flaunts a very cruel male privilege: being comfortable.
That's written to get a chuckle out of you, but it's also touching upon a real truth. Men are allowed to dress a lot more comfortably than women are in the same situation.
I'm not sure if they publish their finances, but being employee friendly and boosting their supply chain is kind of a large part of their identity as a company. Maybe you consider it to be simply propaganda, but you are aware of the founder's book titled Let My People Go Surfing?
I may be biased... I have worked for a company "employee oriented" which also had an big association to help needing people.
So now I only trust the numbers and not the PR on their website.
Patagonia are absolute pioneers of sustainable clothing, and significantly pushed the industry in the right direction. Please spend 30 seconds on their corporate website, or go read Let my people go surfing before making unsustaniated critiques.
Man, you people out in your weird little bubbles are... weird.
I own a Patagonia jacket, one of their Nano Puff line. I do not own it because of some weird status symbol masturbation schtick, but because I live in Maine, Maine winters can be brutal at times (especially if you love the outdoors), and I picked it up for $150 on sale.
Its the lightest and also warmest winter jacket I've ever owned, and the quality is immensely higher than the garbage North Face and Columbia import from China.
It isn't, however, a status symbol. I see lots of people with Patagonia jackets around here, and this isn't some hyper-rich super-exclusive area, just a lot of just plain normal people that work plain normal jobs live around here.
The only competition to Patagonia for a winter jacket is Arc’teryx and REI... and all you're doing is paying more for a similar quality jacket. Arc'teryx is a much bigger status symbol than Patagonia is, at least around here.
So yeah, if some asshat on Wall Street thinks Patagonia is somehow a status symbol, they're also the same type of asshat that thinks Apple is an acceptable phone/laptop brand (it ain't), and the same type of asshat that thinks Starbucks doesn't taste like burnt gasoline.
They don't live in the real world, their "impressive" paychecks are just being wasted by trying to keep up with the Jonses, and they're arguably not even actual real authentic people, just some 24/7 kayfabe-esque act, because of this.
Dear HN, please don't keep up with the Jonses. You need to own things because of how the world works, so just own a few nice quality objects that last awhile. Patagonia will never be a status symbol because it lasts forever if well loved.
"All those evil hedge funds and “Uber-for-X” tech startups can go pound sand."
Why are "Uber-for-X" startups and hedge funds lumped into the same category? Is the "Uber-for-X" business model unethical or does it bring no value to consumers?
Uber for x usually means “let’s break laws and ‘disrupt’ an industry where workers had a reasonable quality of life and further push the gig economy” I’m fully okay with calling that out for being detrimental.
At least a hedge fund invests money for clients and pays taxes (sometimes)
This is epic. I actually received one of these at a event last week. I actually thought it was horribly tacky, living someplace not California where jackets need arms to prevent frostbite. I had no idea that they were a part of the culture wars.
82 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadIt's interesting because it is sort of a rebrand for Patagonia to move away from this market. I have no idea if the numbers of cobranded vests are large and material on their revenue. If I had to guess I would probably say no. However, the public sentiment on this and seeing these vests on wall st and in VC circles could be actually a potentially damaging blow to the brand. One that was originally self inflicted.
Based on them looking to move away from this I would have to guess that they aren't really happy with this direction. Kind of like the Colin Kaepernick ads with Nike, though on a much smaller scale.
And of course, on-brand.
>"A representative for Patagonia confirmed it has recently changed its policy, but declined to say exactly when this change happened. Here is the company’s statement:
“Our corporate sales program manages Patagonia’s sales to other companies, non-profits and other organizations. We recently shifted the focus of this program to increase the number of Certified B Corporations, 1% For The Planet members and other mission-driven companies that prioritize the planet. This shift does not affect current customers in our corporate sales program.”"
When I’m in the Bay Area and see every private equity bro wearing a Patagonia fleece, it makes me wonder if they are supporting the brand for the same reason.
Ultimately it shouldn’t matter. But I’d rather be associated with the responsibly sourced clothing brand than the financial engineering brand.
They're not blanket excluding religious groups.
Let's get real folks: it's just a totally synthetic fleece in a totally commodity package. There's nothing really special about Patagonia. It's just a brand.
I'd buy it because I like the design, possibly, not because of their corporate positioning / PR spin.
https://www.instagram.com/hoeingforyield/ https://www.instagram.com/finance_god/
I could absolutely see why Patagonia wants to distance itself from these sorts of fratty, money-focused business cultures. Same with Venture Capital.
I hope this (and Nike with Kaepernick) is the start of a wave in society calling companies to task over advertising shilling.
Personally, and I've expressed this numerous times, I find advertising to be absolutely devastating on the efficiency of modern society so... let's de-brand everything wee!
[1] Off that list, of course, automobiles were very difficult to obtain.
I suppose the problem is not that advertisement or branding exists at all --- but how it exists today. I don't know if this is the "resting state" of advertisement/branding or not.
We need to find some way, societally, to limit how much of this wave'o'advertising we're exposed to - to place a value on time and remove the "cold call" style of advertising pitches. I was optimistic about ad-words when it first rolled out because, given the context awareness and unobtrusiveness, I thought it might kill advertising dead - and it sort of did. We no longer have the "Shoot the pirate" flash banner ads, nor the popups for v1agr4 since that over the top attention grab ended up being pushed out by more relevant product advertising... but we're backsliding again.
If you're an advertiser and I raise my hand and say "I'm looking for a power drill" or even "I'm looking for something to do on saturday" then feel free to make your case - but this unsolicited BS is like the bane that once was door-to-door salesmen, it's actually a hilariously parallel - your time is being taken, something is invading your private space and you're being interrupted from doing something you'd like to do to listen to someone shill.
We know we are constantly being fed B.S. so reading something with an open mind is difficult in the modern world, chances are there's some sort of sponsored content push in there somewhere - so we skim read before reading to check for ads, then we stop doing that second step and just take a surface scan of data. Our brains are so constantly bombarded with advertising that we're now receiving advertising, occasionally, for retreats where we can get away from all the advertising and noise of the modern world.
I have a personal, lovely example for this which is so beautifully clear - sandwich boards. Sandwich boards are those tilted sidewalk signs that shops put out for anyone who isn't aware, they can cause a moderate increase in traffic to a store because they're annoying - specifically. Signs that are hung from an awning above a shop don't obstruct people so their attention doesn't catch them as often, while as sandwich boards are more than happy to block half the sidewalk and force you to walk around them in an effort to be noticed - their usage is valid when indicating a temporary state, since the cost of hanging an awning sign to let people know that the ping-pong tournament has been moved down the street is silly and often not an option - but when that board is just advertising an establishment (even if doing that advertising by letting you know about a sale) then they can often be seen below an awning sign that is perfectly visible from the same angle (window painting and displays tend to be less visible to pedestrians so there is a valid reason to have some angled description of your business)
So, let's do away with all these sandwich boards - they exist for no reason other than to annoy us and get in our way. They occasionally make narrow sidewalks difficult to traverse for people with walkers or wheelchairs and what, as a society, are we getting for that cost? Nothing.
Sandwich boards are a beautiful example of this since so many of us encounter them daily, but lots of other advertising goes out of it's way to be obtrusive, to steal some of your mind's attention (jingles) or to be visually distracting (flashy banner ads). This shit has costs that we all pay, and the value we, as a society, reap for paying that cost is dwarfed by the cost - people are already spending almost all their money constantly so this advertising war isn't to make sure people make informed choices, it's to steal the sale away from a different product.
Now, virtue signaling is nothing new. Humans have expressed their moral values for a very very long time. Governments too, and of course companies as seen here. Where it might get sticky and dangerous is virtue signaling by technology companies that functions as utility company to certain aspects of the internet. At that intersection, one organization's virtue signaling is another's free speech ban.
That said, it's always great when company's give to charity out of good will. My only problem is pushing 'social good' narratives for internet points among online slacktivists.
Know what real virtue signaling looks like? Crying "virtue signaling!" whenever you see anyone take a principled stand for something. We get it, you know the fancy word and you hate liberalism, I'm sure your fellow reactionaries are very proud of you.
That said, only certain companies are able to take advantage of virtue signaling in branding. In retail, it will typically be the brands like in this case. They are the endpoint of a very long supply chain. And perhaps that's good enough for a customer – to only need to navigate the values the various brands advertise. Going deeper will be way beyond any consumer, the number of organizations and their moral values to navigate becomes overwhelming.
Take something as simple as a pencil, try to navigate the values of the multitude of organizations involved in producing a single pencil.
Dixon Ticonderoga or bust.
They are turning down business and a denying a significant portion of the brand identity that they have constructed in order to make a point and course-correct to be more true to their values.
To call this virtue signalling is to betray either a fundamental misunderstanding of what "virtue signaling" means, or a bad-faith attempt to plaster any progressive sentiment as phony.
"Virtue signalling" is the new "SJW".
[0]https://www.core77.com/posts/73853/Patagonias-Materials-Choi...
[1]https://www.patagonia.com/corporate-responsibility.html
[EDIT] that is, The Official Preppy Handbook. The sequel's called True Prep and is, again, awful, do not read it, it has none of the fun, well-voiced humor of the first, it's bad, bad, bad.
I can't wear sweatshirts at my current job, but used to at my 3 previous jobs. Now, it's a button down shirt and either a sweater or vest. Ive plenty of both, but none corporate branded.
Vests are nice in that they can easily be removed and put back on.
Most of my sweaters are partial zip. I can't easily remove one without my shirt and undershirt coming with it (I'm a guy, but I still think its rude to go flashing my bare chest & back in an office).
“Kim, president of the communications agency Vested (the reference is to the finance term, not the sleeveless layer), attempted to place an order for a client...”
Their website is www.fullyvested.com and their recruiting page is titled In-Vested. Get it? In Vested.
Scroll down the article to the satirical Instagram post with a new definition of “Divest” involving “guys named Chad.”
Announcing it yesterday would have made the prank too obvious.
Hats off to the creative director at Vested for pulling off a masterful stroke of guerilla marketing. Now they are on the radar of tons of finance firms who know that this firm “feels their pain,” so to speak. Well played on all fronts.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt" <== my motto, due to situations like this
> The Power Vest flaunts a very cruel male privilege: being comfortable.
> The Power Vest is a form of male privilege, a hideous fleece totem of the patriarchy’s oppression of non-cis-male people in the workplace.
Seriously? It's just a vest.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/i-wore-...
i'm not entirely sure you were supposed to.
And I would have thought something a bit more up market from Barbour or Burberry - those vests in the pics just look so fugly.
Plus... Notopoulos
Not O'Poulos.
Not of the chicken.
Not afraid.
We can conclude this isn't a real person, as they're not afraid to be outed, as in having their arms out wearing a vest.
Clever indeed.
> The Power Vest flaunts a very cruel male privilege: being comfortable.
That's written to get a chuckle out of you, but it's also touching upon a real truth. Men are allowed to dress a lot more comfortably than women are in the same situation.
An obviously fake name, BTW.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/i-wore-...
I am honestly not sure.
The day they publish their margin and cost breakdown, I may listen to their PR BS.
Ah yes, the corporate website, a true bastion of unbiased information.
I own a Patagonia jacket, one of their Nano Puff line. I do not own it because of some weird status symbol masturbation schtick, but because I live in Maine, Maine winters can be brutal at times (especially if you love the outdoors), and I picked it up for $150 on sale.
Its the lightest and also warmest winter jacket I've ever owned, and the quality is immensely higher than the garbage North Face and Columbia import from China.
It isn't, however, a status symbol. I see lots of people with Patagonia jackets around here, and this isn't some hyper-rich super-exclusive area, just a lot of just plain normal people that work plain normal jobs live around here.
The only competition to Patagonia for a winter jacket is Arc’teryx and REI... and all you're doing is paying more for a similar quality jacket. Arc'teryx is a much bigger status symbol than Patagonia is, at least around here.
So yeah, if some asshat on Wall Street thinks Patagonia is somehow a status symbol, they're also the same type of asshat that thinks Apple is an acceptable phone/laptop brand (it ain't), and the same type of asshat that thinks Starbucks doesn't taste like burnt gasoline.
They don't live in the real world, their "impressive" paychecks are just being wasted by trying to keep up with the Jonses, and they're arguably not even actual real authentic people, just some 24/7 kayfabe-esque act, because of this.
Dear HN, please don't keep up with the Jonses. You need to own things because of how the world works, so just own a few nice quality objects that last awhile. Patagonia will never be a status symbol because it lasts forever if well loved.
Why are "Uber-for-X" startups and hedge funds lumped into the same category? Is the "Uber-for-X" business model unethical or does it bring no value to consumers?
At least a hedge fund invests money for clients and pays taxes (sometimes)