Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, physical appearance can often have a big impact when dealing with certain clientele.
Certain types of clients just prefer to deal with people who conform to what might be considered a more "conservative" appearance. Deviating from their expectations can reduce their level of trust, for instance, which can impact business dealings. This is especially true when dealing with customers from abroad, especially when there are other cultural differences at play.
Some people have also had very, very bad experiences with other people who dress or groom themselves in a specific way. It's not the appearance itself that is harmful, but rather the association it has to other people who were directly involved with bad experiences in the past.
An example of this are those Ruby on Rails developers who choose a so-called "hipster" appearance. It can only take one disastrous Ruby on Rails project for a client to consider all software developers who have such an appearance to be untrustworthy and unprofessional. Again, whether it's right or wrong, this can happen very easily.
The specifics of this particular case aren't very clear. But I wouldn't be so quick to underestimate the importance or impact of physical appearance in general, when it comes to business dealings.
> Some people have also had very, very bad experiences with other people who dress or groom themselves in a specific way.
I've had very, very bad experiences with people who dress in suits. Indeed, the people who have had the most severe negative effects on my life have invariably worn suits. And I can't name many people I've had positive experiences with who ever wear suits.
Yet, somehow, I don't think that's what you had in mind when defending this nonsense.
I think if we shook things around and looked at the PommeDeTerre's explanation another way, it'd come out like this:
> People who are dressed in a suit represent the existing power structures; lots of people like said power structures; people with suits represent some sort of alignment with power structures and can resonate as an authority and conformer to the way things are.
I want to clearly distance myself from this statement, but I recognize that it (or some variant of it) is adhered to by many people.
I take it that you're not a "person who wears a suit"?
The reality of the business world is that those who control the money are often "people who wear suits". This is especially true when large sums of money are involved.
If a given business wants such people (and the organizations they represent) as clients, then the business will need to conform to the expectations of these potential clients. The impact of such conformance can be even greater on a startup, which may not have much leeway or influence in such dealings.
I'm not "defending" nor "promoting" what happened in this case; the details are much too vague. I'm merely pointing out that there are factors at play in the real world which may make such decisions more plausible and more comprehensible.
> I take it that you're not a "person who wears a suit"?
I'm a person whose life experience tells me anyone wearing a suit is, to a very high degree of probability, evil, stupid, or both.
Do your justifications work both ways or not? If it's just fine to discriminate against someone for not wearing a suit, is it equally fine for me to discriminate against someone for wearing a suit?
> the business will need to conform to the expectations of these potential clients
If people would stop appeasing these idiots and instead do the ethical thing by telling them to take a hike, it wouldn't be an issue.
Of course you can distrust somebody who wears a suit. I didn't say that you couldn't, or that you shouldn't.
You keep forgetting about the context we're discussing here, though: real-world business dealings. When one party has money, and the other party wants some of it, the party with the money generally sets the tone of the business relationship. This may involve certain expectations with respect to how the people they deal with appear and behave.
Yes, maybe startups seeking business relationships with larger, wealthier organizations shouldn't put up with expectations that they feel are unreasonable. But that's not how the real world works, unfortunately. If money is to be made, then some sacrifices of various forms will very likely need to be made. I'm merely pointing out this very real fact of today's business world, and how it's plausible that appearance can play a very significant role in business relationships.
> Of course you can distrust somebody who wears a suit.
I didn't say distrust, I said discriminate against. As in, "I don't like that you wear a suit, so you're fired.".
> I'm merely pointing out this very real fact of today's business world, and how it's plausible that appearance can play a very significant role in business relationships.
You're pointing out that many people are willing to be unethical to make money. This is neither surprising nor interesting.
It is, however, disgusting, and doubly so because the appeasement is the only thing that allows it to persist in the first place. If the person with money had trouble finding vendors who lived up to their arbitrary expectations, the incentive would exist to change those expectations.
For job interviews--and only job interviews--I tend to dress up to something between a button-up silk dress shirt with pressed slacks and no tie to a full suit. I've mostly done the latter in a previous career (academia) where it was expected for interviews.
Certain types of clients just prefer to deal with people who conform to what might be considered a more "conservative" appearance. Deviating from their expectations can reduce their level of trust, for instance, which can impact business dealings. This is especially true when dealing with customers from abroad, especially when there are other cultural differences at play.
Some people have also had very, very bad experiences with other people who dress or groom themselves in a specific way. It's not the appearance itself that is harmful, but rather the association it has to other people who were directly involved with bad experiences in the past.
An example of this are those Ruby on Rails developers who choose a so-called "hipster" appearance. It can only take one disastrous Ruby on Rails project for a client to consider all software developers who have such an appearance to be untrustworthy and unprofessional. Again, whether it's right or wrong, this can happen very easily.
The specifics of this particular case aren't very clear. But I wouldn't be so quick to underestimate the importance or impact of physical appearance in general, when it comes to business dealings.