
Silicon Valley’s geeks are trying to turn themselves into jocks - rndmize
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21704834-silicon-valleys-geeks-are-trying-turn-themselves-jocks-revenge-nerds
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seizethecheese
> Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, gets on the treadmill by five in the morning. Jack
> Dorsey, Twitter’s boss, is a fan of squats, push-ups and jogging. Brian
> Chesky, a co-founder of Airbnb, was once a competitive bodybuilder. Jeff
> Bezos and Elon Musk both reportedly have “pecs to die for”.

Tech executives are the celebrities of this community, and this is gossip-rag
level reporting.

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bllguo
Embarrassing. This tripe gets published on The Economist these days?

A piece on the fitness trend in SV without the trash psychoanalysis would have
been somewhat interesting.

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thesimpsons1022
sad actually because the economist is a good publication otherwise

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bllguo
exactly, that was my impression. Now I'm not so sure.

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n00b101
Could it be related to Pearson PLC selling off its 50% equity stake in The
Economist Group in Aug 2015 for £469m?

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seizethecheese
Highly unlikely. Pearson PLC is a publicly traded company whereas the buyers
of the equity stake are private families. The families are a lot more likely
to act in a way that maximizes long term value over short term profit than
Pearson.

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wmeredith
This is bizarrely low brow for The Economist. What the hell? I can't tell if
it's satire or human interest or what.

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redler
The real submission here should be a thought piece along the lines of "what
the hell is going on over at the Economist?", providing this link as evidence
of its decline.

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herbst
what a random pile of shit

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dudul
Good way to put it yeah.

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cylinder
My general rule on trend pieces: ignore them all.

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ipozgaj
For a moment I thought I was reading Buzzfeed, not the Economist.

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golergka
Typical Buzzfeed article.

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fbonetti
Except it's in the Economist. Bizarre.

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cloudjacker
As someone that recently submersed himself in the Bay Area and its resentment
of change:

WTF is a tech bro? That's not a thing

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sandworm101
A junk article, but I would add that there is one aspect to the word "jock"
that the silicon valley elite aren't respecting. They are not competing in
heavily-regulated sports. For all the talk of clean living, drugs and "sups"
are common. A jock is someone who works at being competitive, regardless of
look. These guys are only interested in projecting an image.

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sulam
You're being downvoted heavily, and I thought I might mention possible
justifications for that. You have an impressive density of third-rail-steppage
on your way down the karma hole! :)

1) every sufficiently regulated sport seems to have frequent violations of
these regulations. Clearly "nerds" (a term I find nearly as demeaning as
"jocks") are not the only ones trying to hack the body.

2) Talking about people's health activities as both you and this article have
done is reductionist to the point of absurdity. There are many ways people try
to improve their health, some are performance minded but plenty are looking to
improve base metrics like weight, body fat percentages and such. You can't
describe all of silicon valley in a sweeping statement in such a basic area of
human activity.

3) The false dichotomy between "nerds" and "jocks" is silly and false, at
least in my experience. Anecdatally, I worked with an extremely competitive
rugby player who was also a great functional programmer, and he's far from the
only example I could provide. This is an 80's stereotype and seeing it
perpetuated by the Economist (and then echoed) is disappointing.

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sandworm101
Funny, I'm not being "heavily" downvoted (-1) nor did I mention any dichotomy.
I work with these guys. I exercise with them (personally, I'm a swimmer). They
are in it for the body image, not to compete in regulated sport. With no rules
forbidding them, the use of substances legal or otherwise is common. Jocks
aren't image people. That term is associated with sport, for those who compete
rather than simply exercise for purposes of health/fitness/look.

