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Posts Tagged ‘socks’

The Entrepreneurial Sock

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Erik sent along this lead, and John sent it to him. Both are guys who started tech companies, and I’m learning that requires a certain kind of attire.

To signal you are a laid-back but savvy entrepreneur, wear cool socks.

Claire Cain Miller and Nick Bilton write at the NY Times, “For barristers in 18th-century London, it was shoulder-grazing wigs. For the Mad men of 1950s New York, it was briefcases and fedoras. For the glass-ceiling-shattering women of the 1980s, it was shoulder pads.

“And for today’s tech entrepreneurs in high-flying Silicon Valley, it is flamboyantly colored, audaciously patterned socks.

“In a land where the uniform — jeans, hoodies and flip-flops — is purposefully nonchalant, and where no one would be caught dead in a tie, wearing flashy socks is more than an expression of your personality. It signals that you are part of the in crowd. It’s like a secret handshake for those who have arrived, and for those who want to. …

“Some say the craze took hold because socks are an acceptable shot of flair in a dressed-down, male-dominated culture — and peek out when entrepreneurs present their latest apps onstage at the tech world’s frequent conferences. Others offer a perhaps more universal explanation. ‘Girls notice,’ said Matt Graves, 37 …

“Travis Kalanick, 35, co-founder and chief executive of Uber, the on-demand taxi service, began wearing statement socks at his previous company, which sold software to businesses.

“ ‘I started having to suit up for meetings with Fortune 500 companies,’ said Mr. Kalanick (his favorite: hot pink). ‘I wanted to keep a little of my geeky computer engineering flair without people thinking I was nuts.’  …

“Sometimes I will even browse the women’s section and get the XXL, because they have all the fun colors,” said Andrew Trader, 42, an investor at Maveron who helped found Zynga. (He is partial to wool socks with bright stripes as well as a pair with an American flag pattern.)”

Read more at the NY Times, here, and check out their slide show.

Erik adds, “And here is a Swedish retail start-up (featured in article) that apparently designs and sells them.”

I can’t tell you how happy I am to know about socks. Father’s Day gifts for the men in the family are settled for the foreseeable future.

Now, can I give Suzanne, the Luna & Stella entrepreneur, socks as gifts, too?

Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

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Good Idea San Francisco

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

When Suzanne lived in San Francisco, she told me about a guy in the Tenderloin district who wanted to do something for the homeless people who were his neighbors. He would stop and talk to people, and eventually he decided to hand out new socks, because that was what was needed. Small. Not solving any underlying problems. Just making someone feel noticed.

Recently I did a web search to see if I could figure out who the guy was and write a blog post. I found someone in San Francsico who started doing similar small kindnesses, but I’m not sure it’s the same guy. (If you know, please tell me.)

The person I discovered in my search is the founder of A Good Idea. He and others who have joined him do random things that connect them with strangers in a way that is sometimes greeted with suspicion, sometimes with delight. (It’s San Francisco after all. People are ready to be surprised.) Volunteers may distribute fruit, cookies, hugs, or services.

“Jared Paul’s life changed after he chose meaning over money. He abandoned a successful six-figure sales career and started a nonprofit organization, A Good Idea, in the summer of 2008.

“ ‘In April of 2008, I went through a life transformation: The more money I made, the more stressed I became, the more my passions began to fade, and the more I stopped dreaming,’ says Paul, 33, who had flourished in a variety of sales positions for nearly 10 years.

“Amid dissatisfaction with his job and his personal life, Paul decided to dedicate himself to making a difference. So he reached out to people via Facebook and Craigslist and began an informal discussion group that met at the Red Vic Peace Café in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The meetings led to the birth of A Good Idea (AGI).

“ ‘A Good Idea is a vehicle for social change that connects people in need with people who want to help,’ explains Paul.

“ ‘One of our first events was called Intentional Acts of Kindness, where we would do acts of kindness to complete strangers,’ Paul recalls. ‘When the San Francisco Chronicle decided to do a news piece, we received over 250 e-mails from people who were inspired and wanted to be part of A Good Idea. That’s when things really took off.’ ” Read more.

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