Mark Zuckerberg ditches power hoodie to impress Chinese officials
There are few certain things in this world, but this is -- or used to be -- one of them: no matter the day, the occasion or the place, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will wear a gray t-shirt, or a gray hoodie, or a gray t-shirt under a gray hoodie.
For years, this has been an event as regular as the train schedules: Zuckerberg bragged about it on the Today show in 2012. He wore his hoodie on Wall Street -- swamped by resentful, besuited bankers -- when Facebook was selling stock to the public. And he flaunted it on his first day back from paternity leave this year.
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Everyone believed in Zuckerberg as the quintessential startup CEO using the hoodie as the ultimate thumb in the eye of conformist corporate capitalism in favor of Silicon Valley liberty.
Has it all been lies?
Speaking in China today, Zuckerberg wore...a suit.
An honest to goodness, sharply tailored, I-run-a-multibillion-dollar-company suit.
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Let's be clear: we know Zuck owns a suit. It's not the first time Zuck got dressed up. He also wore a suit -- and tie -- for a state dinner at the White House.
And he dressed up for an awards ceremony in Germany in February.
And a rare visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Facebook headquarters.
A state dinner, prime minister visit or awards ceremony is one thing.
But for business purposes, Zuckerberg has largely avoided suits. Even in Germany, he wore a hoodie to chat with two government ministers.
That hoodies-for-business rule was firm, we thought. Until now.
Apparently Zuckerberg found one billion reasons to visit his tailor.
Zuckerberg is visiting China to try to open its borders to Facebook. And to do that he seems willing to do anything, including running cheerfully through smog-ridden Beijing.
He also has to conform to the Chinese expectation of CEOs, which includes being clean-cut and in a suit. In the formal Chinese government and business cultures, there is no casual Friday, no bright colored suits, and definitely no hoodies -- not even for an American billionaire.
Of course, adapting to China requires conforming to Chinese expectations in other ways, as well.
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This is all going to get very complicated, very fast. Somehow we're guessing Zuckerberg can't wait to get back to his hoodies.
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Topics Facebook
Heidi Moore is a Business Editor at Mashable. She directs a team of reporters and editors in creating richly reported, smart and entertaining stories about media, startups, advertising, careers and Social Good that show that business is really a reflection of life and what we value in it.Heidi was previously a finance and economics editor at the Guardian, New York bureau chief and Wall Street correspondent at Marketplace Radio, and a financial reporter at the Wall Street JournalShe loves yoga, rooftops and taking photographs of everything.
