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Tim Cook has been. On a related note, I am convinced that Zuckerberg would have an easier time with these matters with a different haircut..

This is not a personal attack on Zuckerberg, but I think the haircut is damaging his image and makes him less trustworthy than he may be. Joel Kaplan, Myriah Jordan, and their teams may have prepped him well for these hearings (and the famous picture of the talking points left open accidentally-on-purpose is just funny), but he seems to provoke a visceral reaction in people that others do not.

Many see Gates, Dorsey, Ellison, etc as CEOs with certain traits, like nerdy, charming, well-spoken, funny/outspoken/brash, etc, but I don't think they assume they are evil.

I don't think people would see him and think evil on a video like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--APdD6vejI

Again, this is not an attack on physique or on the person, but an observation based on what a lot of comments on these hearings are about. They mostly are about him, not others, drawing comparisons to animals or robots, dehumanizing him, etc. This leads me to think it's a matter of perception and image and I'm wondering what impact the latter would have on the former.



Sure but the presumption in your comment is that he has the ability to have a dramatically different haircut. My sense is he's struggling with hair loss (take a look at his father https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/190201121030-facebook...), and in this context, he might have a very limited set of haircuts available to him.


Elon Musk was able to fix his hair loss, Mark has the money to fix it as well.


I don't mean to get into an argument about this, but as someone who also doesn't have great hair genetics and has looked some into it, "solving" hairloss isn't turnkey and doesn't produce the same results for everyone. There's genetics at play and things we don't know (if any startup/company does solve it, there's a pile of gold waiting for them).

If you want a counter example to your Elon, take a look at Lebron James.

Anyways it's entirely possible Mark has looked into it and doing it what he can (and we're seeing the results of it), or simply he doesn't care as much and is okay with what he has, or I'm off base and he picked this haircut despite having an abundance of hair available to him.


Good point.


> Many see Gates, Dorsey, Ellison, etc as CEOs with certain traits, like nerdy, charming, well-spoken, funny/outspoken/brash, etc, but I don't think they assume they are evil.

I’m really from the other side of the world, then ;) Gates’ 1998 hearings made him look extremely bad; the modern Gates is charming, but so charming it’s made up (people are used to PR stunts, teenage now distinguish ads hiding as memes very quickly, same goes for any PR stunt); Dorsey is seen as quite evil for those who know him in my circles, rather like a Taliban in his last congressional hearing, reminding of Bin Laden: https://media-vanityfair-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/media.va...

I reckon beautiful hair can have a lot of impact on perception. Philosophers have long hair. I’ve also read somewhere that we intuitively estimate people’s intelligence to the size of the displayed forehead (Some Slavic haircuts with hair down, have negative prejudices associated), and maybe a part of your point about Zuckerberg’s haircut is doesn’t display a large enough forehead.

Superficial, but masses have collective behaviors.


Are you familiar with the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists and its associated clubs?

https://www.improbable.com/hair-club/

"When working on her doctoral dissertation in psychology, Robin Abrahams dreamed one night that she was asked to be the editor of a prestigious psychology journal with a singular editorial policy: all articles must mention Steven Pinker's luxuriant, flowing hair. ...She told Marc Abrahams about this dream and the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists was born.

The first member, chosen by acclamation, was psychologist Steven Pinker, whose hair has long been the object of admiration, and envy, and intense study. From that lone, Pinkerian seed, there has grown a spreading chestnut, black, blond, and red-haired membership tree. ...

The public loves to see and applaud scientists who have luxuriant flowing hair, a luxuriant head of former hair, or luxuriant flowing facial hair. Therefore, all LFHCfS members who come to Improbable Research events are invited to take a bow, allowing the audience to shower them and their hair with applause."

Maybe check out their blog featuring new members, with their pics and them talking about their life and hair:

https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/


> "Dorsey is seen as quite evil for those who know him in my circles, rather like a Taliban in his last congressional hearing"

Do you mean people who know of him, not know him personally? That's the only way that makes sense because if they knew him personally I don't see what his looks in the hearing have anything to do with it.

Personally I'm surprised Dorsey isn't received better. He's clearly the most social mission oriented. Gave away 28% of his Square equity, Twitter is barely profitable, and his SF lifestyle is fairly modest in comparison to these other super-CEO's. He just doesn't strike me as one who cares much about personal wealth. But I guess the distaste comes from his tweeting for leftist causes.


I'm wondering about the perception of the majority of people who are privy to nothing other than the public image of these executives, not those who do have information on how Gates did/does business, or those who know Dorsey in your circles. If you were to see them through the eyes of that majority, what would you see?


>I don't think they assume they are evil.

Not expressing any opinion of my own, but I did think people assume Ellison is evil.


Steve Jobs described Ellison as his "best friend"


> Ellison

Well... maybe a little evil.




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