How are Pepper Ann and Mark Zuckerberg alike? In which, each in his own style, both They repeat the same clothes every day. The creator and founder of Facebook —since 2021, Meta— and the homonymous social network, and its current president, always wears a minimalist outfit, and many wonder why always wear the same gray t-shirt.
A decade ago, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg held his first public question and answer session at Facebook’s California headquarters on Thursday, November 6, 2014, as collect the blog Workopolis.
Among other questions from the attendees, the CEO and founder of the social network responded to why does he wear the same gray t-shirt every day. First, she clarified that, obviously, it is not always the same, but that it has several similar ones.
Zuckerberg doesn’t want to waste energy on frivolous things: the same shirt helps him make as few decisions as possible
What Zuckerberg almost always wears the same gray t-shirt is no coincidence, but the the result of a decision to simplify their day to day as much as possible, removing the superfluous. “I want to organize my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible, except how best to serve this community,” he explained in that session almost a decade ago.
The CEO of Facebook alluded to the multiple psychological theories that suggest that small decisions tire you and consume your energy.
“My point of view is that I’m in a very fortunate position where I get up every day and help serve over a billion people, and I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend some of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous in my life”, she said in reference to the clothes.
“So I can dedicate all my energy to creating the best products and services and helping us reach our goal and accomplish this mission of helping connect everyone in the world and empowering them to stay connected with the people they love and care about.” pointed.
Avoiding the energy and decision-making expenditure of choosing clothes is therefore the reason for Zuckerberg’s outfit. “Although it seems silly that this is my reason for wearing a gray T-shirt every day, it is true,” he concluded, alluding to other famous people in history, such as Steve Jobs, who also always dressed in the same way.
Simplifying decisions is essential: scientific evidence confirms that we only have the capacity to make a limited number of right decisions per day.
In fact, a report from Stanford and Ben Gurion Universities concluded that judges deciding parole cases were 70% more likely to approve parole than prisoners who appeared first thing in the morning than that of those who did it late in the day, collect he New York Times.
