Like Steve Jobs’ jeans and black turtleneck, Mark Zuckerberg’s gray t-shirt and black hoodie have become a part of the public image of the man.
But why wear the same clothes every day? Well, thanks to Facebook’s first-ever “town hall” in which Zuckerberg fielded questions from the community, we have an answer straight from the CEO himself:
“I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve the community,” he said.
Zuckerberg went on to explain that even daily choices that seem trivial, like what to wear or what to eat for breakfast, can be exhausting—an idea in psychology known as ”decision fatigue.” It’s the same philosophy that underlies Facebook’s and other tech companies’ coddling of their employees with benefits such as free meals and laundry: Without distractions, workers can better focus on work.
The sartorial habits of tech moguls have sparked several entrepreneurial efforts that target men who also want to avoid the distractions of dressing themselves, including a line of modular suits and accompanying accessories by TV personality Ryan Seacrest and a startup called BlackV Club that sells nothing but black v-necks.