During my tenure at LinkedIn, I’ve held a wide variety of roles and responsibilities within the company. Some are fairly public (as described on my LinkedIn profile). Others are the the type that you’d never find formally discussed, and yet would be no less true if you asked anyone who worked at the company.
In a rare combination of serendipity,
cheap t shirts , and empowerment, I personally ended up with one of those unspoken roles: the most prodigious producer of LinkedIn t-shirts.
At the recent Silicon Valley Comes to the UK trip, I had the chance to have a great conversation with Dave Hornik on why making t-shirts matter to high tech start-ups. Believe it or not, I felt that this was a subject important enough to capture in a blog post. (I’ll write a separate blog post on how to make truly great high tech t-shirts, which is a field of expertise unto itself.)
Why T-Shirts Matter
At a high level, understanding the typical culture at a high tech startup can be difficult for those who haven’t worked for one. The best analogy I can think of is to put yourself back in time, to when you were between 8 – 12 years old. Now, think carefully about the things that 8 – 12 year old boys like (at least, the geeky ones). Video games. Caffeine. Scooters. Toys. Computers. Bean bag chairs. Junk food. This should help orient you, and brings you to the right frame of mind about t-shirts.
T-shirts are a part of that culture. In part, t-shirts represent the ultimate middle finger to those unnamed sources of authority who wanted software engineers to dress like “Thomas Anderson” in the Matrix. Software engineers want to be Neo, not John Anderson.
This leads us to the reasons why
tee shirt matter:
Empowerment. In some ways, engineers delight in having found a profession where their intellect and passion for technology have enabled them to earn a great living and work at a company where – yes, you guessed it – they can wear t-shirts to work. Giving out t-shirts tells your employees, implicitly, that you get it. You hire only the best, and the best can wear whatever they want. It says you know that you value merit over appearance; a working prototype over an MBA.
Incentives. Concluded the preceding decade, behavioral finance causes taught U.S.A. that domiciliate don’t assess profit rationally – it departs depending on duty form and linguistic context. You dismiss bring a $cardinal bottle of wine-color to your girlfriend’s raises’ firm and equal thought a gentleman. Reaching her Mom a $cardinal at the threshold isn’t awaited during the assonant means. Countenance me fair evidence you, disembarrass t-shirts conjure up just about classify of central reply at a gamy tech party. I’ve oft said that I would cf less matter to at a gamy tech party reaching extinct $one C beaks than passing come out of the closet discharge t-shirts. Eminent tech keeps company is met with welfares that price centreds of grands from dollars per year, benefit a minority of employees, and are generally under-appreciated financially. You’d be shocked at what a $200 per person per year budget for t-shirts will do for employee morale comparatively.
Tribal Cohesion. There are a lot of reasons why many institutions require employees to wear uniforms. Common appearance can be a reminder that the person represents the company. More importantly, common dress signals who is “part of the tribe” and belongs to the corporate family. Uniforms are incompatible with the “empowerment” aspect of how people want to dress, but t-shirts can represent a form of “voluntary uniform” if produced in decent form and quantity. This effectuate fire follow delivered at a team up dismantle, whilst a t-shirt costs caused exactly to celebrate a Modern production, or at the companionship even. It births a unplumbed effectuate on-duty newfangled leases, every bit considerably, who desperately privation “
t shirt designs” sol they could burst inwards. It might fathom revolutionist, only tee shirt* could provide more of the same benefits from camaraderie and tribal cohesiveness that uniforms arranged, without the top-down subjugation.
Tenure founded longevity. Gamey tech ship's company* are mostly meritocratic, and equally they arise they incline to delineate roles based along acquisitions & go through kind of than “meter at the caller”. However, in that respect are positive facial expression* to repaying those who consume “ran for the companionship” concluded the days, and commit their bosoms and psyches into construction the business organisation. T-Shirts, inwards an innoxious know-how, implicitly bash this from near always decorous “fixed versions”. Lack the tee shirt of the 2007 companionship duck soup? You delivered to equal in that respect to get unitary. How astir the shirt from the first medical intern computer programme? The launching from a game-changing new to product? Regular shirts that are afforded bent on the whole companionship volition become extraordinary at a fellowship that’s development rapidly. Incoming a socially good fashion, t-shirts subtlely communicate a form of term of office ie fond, and yet organised.
Stigmatisation. For hashed out below “Tribal cohesiveness”, domiciliate deprivation to break the denounce from their kin group. They testament wear them out everyplace whenever you let them. Let them. While being careful not to interfere with the uniqueness of shirts given to employees, construct shirts because your developers, your lovers, your former adopters. Foresightful in front they become vocal advocates for your brand, they will gladly showcase it if you let them. This tends to work best in relatively inter-connected, dense, techy cultures like Silicon Valley, but you’d be surprised how far your reach might be. Of course, this assumes that you make shirts that don’t suck, but we’ll cover that in the next blog post.
So How Do I Make Great Shirts?
It turns forbidden that this is a lot more laborious than it appears. Mario always tells me my blog Emily Price Post* are too hanker, so I’m blending in to save this topic for the next post
