Don’t let the hoodies fool you. This is one of the most crucial lessons I learned on my trip to San Francisco and Silicon Valley earlier this month.
Of course, it’s not the only message to report back. The content over the next 16 pages of this special issue of EG delves into everything from the state of play in the US Bay Area market to upcoming trends, start-up occupier strategies and, crucially, what the London property sector needs to know about wooing Californian tech firms. Because their interest in the UK isn’t just growing – it is rocketing. And this means being prepared for a spike in US tech-set attitudes, ideas and sartorial choices.
The latter may sound trivial but I think it is a fast-emerging business issue, especially for an industry as traditional as UK property. Because outside the Bay Area, where casual workwear is de rigueur, it is much harder to recognise someone who turns up to a meeting in shorts, flip-flops and a Pulp Fiction T-shirt as one of the business world’s most powerful decision-makers.
And that is what so many of these tech entrepreneurs have become. Not the next big things in business but the current big things. They are the chief executives of software companies, app developers and service providers – firms that are changing the world and the way we live. They are taking up space across the globe, hiring thousands of people and fuelling the economy. Quite apart from the fact that half of them are under 30, nearly all of them are doing it in jeans and trainers.
I think that this could be a bigger issue than the UK market might admit. While we are aware of the more casual attitude that some in the tech and creative industries take towards their appearance, are we ready to accept it in the boardroom? And I mean really accept it – without judgement, without internal eyebrow raising, without subconscious discrimination?
As tech start-ups get bigger and more powerful – and particularly as the US firms, along with their ingrained rejection of buttoned-up formality, expand into London – the UK companies that want to work with them are going to have to be doing a bit of business attire-free business. Maybe not all the time – but it will certainly become a more widespread issue.
This is not to say that agents and developers should start untucking their own tailored shirts and scuffing up their brogues – the Cushman & Wakefield Bay Area brokers still wear suits Monday to Thursday. It is about accepting a new business culture and a new breed of industry leaders. A relaxed look does not equate to a relaxed attitude to work.
I actually found the business culture in San Francisco and Silicon Valley pretty relentless. The day starts very early, finishes late and down time is almost nonexistent – despite the on-site ping pong tables and massage rooms. The heads of these Bay Area tech firms are usually taking international calls at 6am every day. They are at their desks soon after, grab lunch on the go – long, midday networking over a bottle of wine is not the done thing – and they pack their days with short, sharp meetings to keep their ventures moving and investment flowing.
They may look like students but these guys and girls mean business on a level that could knock the stuffing out of some of their UK counterparts and colleagues.
emily.wright@estatesgazette.com
