There’s a new tech mogul in town, and he’s preparing to enter the pantheon. How do we know?
Well, Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, owns the company: He co-founded Nvidia in 1993, and it’s now worth about $950 billion, though it was briefly in the red in late May. trillion dollar clubputting it in a similar league with Apple, Alphabet and Amazon.
He has a product: a data processing chip, which is the key to the development of AI, that is to say, the life of ChatGPT and Bard, which is the current paradigm shift.
And he has the look: Whenever he’s in the public eye, he wears a black leather jacket, most often with a black T-shirt and black jeans.
Mr. Huang was wearing a black leather jacket when he came on stage era cover As one of the 2021 Person of the Year. Since 2018, he has worn a black leather jacket while delivering keynotes at several GTC developer conferences. Delivered World ITF 2023 keynote and Computex 2023 keynote 2023.He even identified himself, returning to Reddit Insider Answers In 2016, was named “The Man in the Leather Jacket”.
Sometimes his leather jackets have collars, sometimes they look more like biker jackets; sometimes a lot of zippering is involved, sometimes not. But the jacket is always black. He’s been wearing them, a spokesman said, “for at least 20 years.” The point is that he always looks the same.
There isn’t a single widely known face of AI yet. ChatGPT and Bard are anonymous brains. That’s part of what makes AI so weird—its intangible nature. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is everywhere, but looks a little ordinary. Mr. Huang and his leather jacket are ready to step neatly into that gap.
The jacket is an object that has become a signifier—a sign of a person, and the giant leap that person represents. This association puts Mr. Huang in the same club as Steve “Black Turtleneck” Jobs, Mark “Gray T-Shirt” Zuckerberg, and Jeff “Pitbull” Bezos, and as CEO he understands that a family The difference between a company and a world company – the changing success and a company that is world-changing success and part of popular culture may be its puppet image. A comic good enough to enter the public imagination and become the embodiment of the movement.
“It’s instantly recognizable, kind of like a cartoon character or a superhero,” said Richard Thompson Ford, author of “Dress Code: How the Laws of Fashion Made History” and a professor at Stanford Law School. It marks “a down-to-earth rejection of fashion artifice, while still harnessing the power of fashion.”
Not that those involved would say exactly that.
Power Uniforms (or the power of uniforms)
When asked why they wear the same clothes every day, most powerful people who are willing to answer the question say that it saves them time and allows them to think about whatever pressing issue at hand instead of thinking about what they’re going to wear that day.
What’s this Barack ObamaHe only wears gray or dark blue suits except when he is president that unfortunate tan suit momentsay and do the same Mr ZuckerbergAccording to Mr. Huang’s spokesman, “He has previously stated that he wears the same style of black pants and shirt as it is one less set of decisions to make on a daily basis.” (Mr. Huang himself is “on hold with media talk”.)
There is no doubt that this is true. Wearing the same uniform every day also signals discipline (no fashion here), focus and what Mr Ford calls “reliability” — all qualities that all CEOs need to possess.
But to think that’s all there is to miss part of the picture. Anyone who aspires to global domination, especially in the age of visual communication, will know enough about history.
After all, wearing the same clothes every day is a shortcut to crafting a Pavlovian identity in a hive mind—not just in Silicon Valley, but in almost any field. For example, when you think of magazine editors, who do you think of? Anna Wintour, with her no-nonsense bob and shades. When do you think about the Supreme Court? A black gown (and maybe a Ruth Bader Ginsburg lace collar).
History is littered with figures who understood the power of a consistent visual identity, so much so that they often had clothing styles named after them.Nelson Mandela has Madiba Shirt; Narendra Modi, Modi Kurta; Jawaharlal Nehru, Nehru jacket. These associations become impossible to forget, becoming deeply rooted in our cerebral cortex, forming assumptions and opinions. A look at Elizabeth Holmes and her black turtleneck, which has a direct connection to Steve Jobs, suggests, whether we realize it or not, the splendor of viewing the world.
When it comes to cultural associations, few garments are as full of adjectives as a black leather jacket. It’s actually a ready-made personality — something Mr. Wong is well aware of.
according to an observerAs Nvidia’s chief executive walked around Computex in Taipei last month wearing a leather jacket, he was asked how he endured the heat. (this temperature On the day of his keynote address, it was between 79 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. )
“I’m always cool,” Mr Huang replied.
Man in black
Black leather jackets “associate 1950s Hollywood with independence, the open road, rebellion and sexiness,” said Silicon Valley image consultant and stylist Joseph Rosenfeld.
The uniforms of Marlon Brando in “Red Dead Redemption” and James Dean in the photo are almost everywhere. The Beatles and The Beatles; Elvis Presley and David Bowie (during his Berlin days). It’s the exact opposite of what we think of as tech nerds, which is why it’s so smart for Mr. Wong to choose it as his uniform. It stands out. It causes a reevaluation.
Especially for a man in his 60s like Mr. Huang. Imagine, “if Huang wore a suit, or even a polo shirt and khakis,” Mr. Ford said. “He looked like a boring, conventional middle manager.” Instead, he said, the leather jacket “shows that he’s a creative guy, a high-status guy who can wear whatever he wants.” .”
“Why does Jensen Huang always wear the same black leather jacket?” when I asked ChatGPT it responded There are four options, including the suggestion that “leather jackets, especially black leather jackets, are often associated with confidence, authority, and professionalism.” And motorcycles, which are about speed.
The jacket is also associated with the founding myth of Silicon Valley and Mr Jobs, the antithesis of IBM’s gray-suited man and, as Mr Ford puts it, “almost spiritual to some”.Someone, he said, “represents a kind of golden age, when anything seemed possible and people still thought technology was going to be a force for good in the world” — in a public conversation segment focused on the potential threat of artificial intelligence
Jacket strategies are adding up. According to Mr. Rosenfeld, “Clients have asked me about the leather jacket and wondered if they could wear the same.” (He said he told them Mr. Wong already had the look and suggested they develop another signature.)
For those wondering what brand Mr Huang is wearing, his spokesman said he did not know. Unlike Mr. Jobs, who owns multiple versions of the same Issey Miyake turtleneck (or Mr. Zuckerberg, who wears a Brunello Cucinelli T-shirt), Mr. Huang appears to vary his jackets.But Mr. Rosenfeld surmises, “They don’t seem to be on the Tom Ford level, which we know he can afford. At least some I’ve seen look like theory“
However, for those who want the look, there are currently at least seven different e-tailers offering the “Jensen Huang Leather Jacket,” with prices starting at $109 (Pop music) to $149.99 (metric tonshe leather).
To illustrate this point, superstar jacket Sells two versions of the “jensen huang leather jacketas well as a “Fast & Furious 10 Vin Diesel Jacket,” a “Snoop Dogg Leather Jacket,” and an “Indiana Jones Leather Jacket.”
But Mr Huang is the only chief executive with a jacket named after him.
