Wardrobe takeover: The rise of leather jackets among mavericks of deep tech

This writer first noticed the leather jacket, casually slung over a chair in a corner office in a deep-tech startup; then at a community event for techies in Bengaluru, she noticed more.

- Shweta Taneja

Sure, there were worn-out T shirts and ill-fitting jeans, but there were as many smart chinos, sneakers from Comet and leather jackets.

Even though they are a little out of place in Bengaluru's mild weather, it would appear that the leather jacket, now ubiquitous in certain parts of the city - a trend started by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang - is the new tech bro look.

The founder of NVIDIA, one of the most valuable companies on the planet today, has been wearing leather jackets for 20 years, thanks to his daughter's influence. It's only now, that he's become a billionaire (worth $179 billion) that these jackets have become a trend.

Not for everyone, though; only the hardware guys. Tech bros adapting the trend in Silicon Valley and in Bengaluru show a larger trend in technology. If the fashion in the last two decades was inspired by "software CEOs" as a Berkeley founder once called them in an interview, this is the time for the hardware boys. After all, everyone today is way more exposed to deep tech then they were a couple of years ago.

From robotics to satellites, from fast chargers to mechatronics, from data centres to quantum chips, the hardware boys are being brought out of the labs, funded, put on stage and celebrated. They're the new “it” boys of tech. And they're wearing leather jackets to differentiate themselves from the software tech bros. Even in Bengaluru.

From Jobs to Huang

Through the 1980s in the US, employees and founders of hardware and maintenance working in the Silicon Valley wore formal suits and ties, according to archives held by The Computer History Museum in the US, which has hundreds of prints and negatives containing formally dressed employees.