Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Why Palantir Is Selling Tennis Skirts (w/ Lawrence Schlossman)

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Why are people buying OpenAI sweatshirts, Claude “Thinking” hats and Palantir chore coats?SUPPORT MY WORK: Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at https://www.usermag.co         Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenzTo listen to the full episode and get access to more bonus episodes, an ad-free listening experience, and my weekly newsletter, subscribe to my Patreon or Substack 👇🏻Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at ⁠https://www.usermag.co⁠         Support my work on Patreon: ⁠http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz⁠ I sat down with Throwing Fits co-host Lawrence Schlossman to unpack the rise and fall of tech company merch. From Apple’s bizarre 1980s catalog lifestyle flop to dot-com bubble eBay relics, the rise and fall of the infamous corporate Patagonia fleece vest, and today’s ultra-hyped drops from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Palantir, we discuss why the most powerful AI companies on earth are suddenly trying to buy their way into high fashion, menswear, and cultural relevance.We also talk about OpenAI, Anthropic, Palantir, Apple, Meta, Patagonia, Cash App, tech bro fashion, menswear culture and the influencers making AI merchandise aspirational.Subscribe to User Magazine at usermag.co to support this show!!

I see what Poundtier is doing, but again, like if you wear this, you're a fucking bozo. And you can try to pretend that you're doing it for the lulls and trolling all you want like you're a fucking moron. For decades, tech company branded merch was nothing more than recruiting swag or cheap conference giveaways. Tech T-shirts were usually a way for employees to show where they worked or for visitors to take home a souvenir from a corporate office or event. But today, some of the most powerful and influential AI companies on Earth, are launching limited edition apparel collections, collaborating with premium manufacturers, and selling things like a chore coat,

heavyweight sweatshirt, and minimalist accessories that would look more at home in a niche boutique in Tokyo than a corporate gift shop. Lawrence Schwossmann has been tracking this evolution closely. He's the co-host of the menswear and culture podcast throwing fits. And today, we're going to dive deep into the history of tech company merch and talk about how tech merch went from employee uniforms to startup sales, of symbols to a wearable expression of a person's identity and ideology.

Lawrence, welcome to power user. Thank you for having me, Taylor. Great to chat. I'm so excited to dive into the tech merch ecosystem with you. I feel like you're the perfect person to talk about this. And there's actually a lot more history in terms of tech merch than I thought. And I want to get your thoughts on the first piece of tech merch that ever existed. They should have sent that guy to Turkey for a hair transplant.

Jesus Christ. I know. Listen, that's not saying much coming for me. So I am self-aware, but that's a rough mugshot. Yeah, if you scroll down, you can see the back of the shirt. So basically, back in 1983, all of these tech executives, including Burles Smith, who's a really famous computer engineer for Apple, he's the one in the picture. Damn, my bad for being rude. No, you know what?

I don't think tech guys are known for their looks. So basically, everyone was working really hard to get the first Apple PC out. They were grinding. And so internally, the finance team decided to make these sweatshirts. Do you want to describe it? Yeah, it is a gray hoodie. I can't necessarily see the front graphic, though. Clearly, there's some type of writing on the front.

However, we have a Macintosh, but it's misspelled because a Time Magazine story had just misspelled Macintosh with a K. So it says McIntosh with a K on the front. Cheeky inside joke for all the coworkers. That's great coworker humor. That's a perfect example of that. The back graphic is kind of off-white adjacent. If anyone is familiar with the Virgil Ablo streetwear brand off-white, that is now a part of some

big streetwear. and is not very relevant anymore. The insignia on the back, the, I don't know what you call it. So almost like like caution tape, you know, that graphic. But yeah, and then it says 90 hours a week and loving it, exclamation mark. At the time, the Apple engineers were working 90 hours a week. And so the joke was like, we're working 90 hours a week and we love it. And this became this really iconic hoodie that a lot of early Apple people would wear.

And it became sort of an inside joke. Like you said, it's kind of funny how modern it looks almost with the typography. and just the whole Silicon Valley 996 culture now. I feel like they're also constantly talking about how they work 90 hours a week. I worked 90 hours a week and all I got was this stupid T-shirt. The bar is very low in terms of the things that I'm expecting you to send my way. But this is better than I thought it would be. It's funny.

So this was not available publicly, but Apple became this really well-known consumer brand in the 80s shortly after this sweatshirt was produced. And that led the people at Apple to think, you know what, we're getting so popular. We should launch a lifestyle brand. And we should launch a whole merch line. And so they actually released a catalog called the Apple Collection.

And it was a full fashion catalog that basically tried to turn the computer company into a lifestyle brand. Yeah, I'm super familiar with this. This is perfect mood board fodder from like whether it was the Tumblr era or Instagram. If you've been on the internet and you care about lifestyle and aesthetics, you have seen scans from this. And if you're a fashion person or a menswear guy, you've definitely. seen the apparel that is being modeled here quite professionally, I might add. It doesn't look bad. Honestly, looking back, I think it looks really good. It's interesting what they chose to. It's clothes, but it's also other lifestyle accessories. Can you talk about some of the products that they

launch? Yeah, I mean, what I'm looking at is like a full sportswear lifestyle collection for seemingly all genders. And it's very technical. It's extremely preppy. There are a lot of primary colors, big pops of Eves Klein Blue, which we see now with both open. and AI in Palantir, which is obviously a super iconic trendy primary version of blue. Everyone is probably familiar with it. We're seeing some reds, some yellows, some popped collars, multiple popped collars worn at the same time. But this is very 80s, repi Americana, the kind of stuff that since been made extremely

famous by brands like Ralph Lauren and Jay Crewe. And this is kind of a aesthetic or a mode of dressing or even a subculture that is very much ingrained in terms of American fashion as the originators of this style versus other popular menswear looks or aesthetics that come from other parts of the world like Europe or England specifically or Japan. This is wholly American and yeah, it's like, I'm not sure how much logos on this stuff because I'm like looking at it's pretty small. There's not that many logos. I feel like it's understated. It feels very preppy, quiet luxury to me. I don't know if you see this page where there's a knapsack and a satchel. There's just a tiny little apple logo, but you

barely see it. No, it is like tastefully done. Some of this stuff feels like very sporty and rich, right? Like this is a look that is like, is I kind of a look that is I and has been copied a million times over. And of course, McIntosh itself is probably pulling the obvious time period correct references in terms of the stuff that they were releasing and designing. But yeah, the logos here are small. They do exist on hats and as crests on shirting. But if you like switch that stuff with, I don't know, the Ralph Lauren polo player,

you might be able to fool 99% of people. This is vintage polo being modeled in some local Macy's or Dillard's catalog. It seems so strange, too. Like you mentioned, it's really for the lifestyle. There was this TechCrunch article. 13 Apple products that you never knew existed. And they're selling coolers. They're selling a beer mug.

They're selling an attache. It was sort of a flop. And it's so crazy how iconic it's been. And when I was researching this episode, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is the most iconic. This is when Tech merch was really cool, you know? I feel like he said it's been all over Tumblr and everything. This is ahead of its time, right? I think that's what basically I'm getting from this.

This would be like the dream merch drop release or offering from all of the horrendous main offenders that I'm sure we're going to get into. If it was this shit, I think that, I mean, this is not for everyone to be clear. Some of this shit does look a little dated and some of the bigger Apple logo spellout stuff looks like typical bad 80s clothes that you picture your mom wearing and a throwback photo in a photo album or like something you'd see thrifting. Not everything here is necessarily aged that well, but again, it's executed at a fairly high level.

And the fact that it flopped at the time, I'm not super shocked, but this clear would bang extremely hard in 2026 if a brand was to do this or a tech brand specifically was to do well i think that's what's so interesting they did continue on they tried this merch strategy for almost a decade but it was mid 80s into mid 90s and then apple was running out of money it was this perilous time for the company and they kind of just quit it but i think the reason it didn't become this massive thing that they maybe hoped it would be this revenue generating lifestyle brand is because tech at that time yes the mac computers were making tech more accessible but you were still seen as a geek you know Sure. What was the average fan of Macintosh at this time? Or how many were there? Because now I feel like Apple fan boys or fan girls, whoever, that's like a giant subculture where people, like anything else, make consumer goods their entire personality. So yeah, the current Apple stand would probably love an opportunity to get a bunch of this apparel or some logo emblazing the briefcase or calculator.

A hundred percent. The average Apple fan in like 1986 honestly probably looked like Borrell, you know? So it wasn't exactly like the people pictured in the catalog. No, I don't think they were Chad's and Stacey's or whatever the term is. These are professional models. They're not employees. I don't think. We're just, they're not nerds. So tech merch kind of petered along. In the 90s, we saw huge conventions where basically there'd be endless booths pitching their

dot-com startups. And that's when the tech t-shirt became a thing. So people attend these conferences like marketing and sales and come back with dozens and dozens of t-shirts with Pets.com, you know, like these corny looking t-shirts. And most tech merch in the 2010s into the. early 2000s was super promotional in that way. It was all that classic tea. I think if anyone's ever attended any type of trade show or job fair, it's like that, the swag across the board. It's free because it's bad. It looks like shit. It's made like shit. And it's funny to think about how many of those

t-shirts or promotional items exchanged hands that whoever got them immediately threw that in the garbage or whatever and how a lot of that stuff. And that's not even saying anything from this Apple catalog, but just the stuff that you're talking about, those are worth a lot of money on eBay. And they're not necessarily grail status. And I don't think it approaches the level because there is this novelty merch culture around shuttered investment banks and things like that, which actually go for a ton of money because there's less of that stuff. And those promotional items were fewer and far between and harder to come by. But the stuff that you're talking about in the moment, there's probably people that be like, no, you can't even give this to me for free. I'm not going to take trash from you

that now are worth some money as these, again, novelty relics from this very interesting time in American corporate culture. So much of the dot-com. Boom was about promotion too. This is when websites have counters on them where you could see how many times someone clicked, which I think is so funny. And so it was like, get this logo on a t-shirt, get this name. A lot of the t-shirts had a URL spelled out. Pump this stock.

Yeah. Inflate the bubble. Right. And they're all totally defunct. I mean, some of them, like you said, it's funny to have it as an ironic thing now, but I feel like most of these companies were just lost. Being lost to the sands of time is what makes it interesting, right, to people. It only enhances that novelty factor.

If pets.com was a huge popular website or wasn't the perfect poster child of this ridiculous era of capitalism, if we're still around, it's not good. The T's meaning changes, obviously, and it then is literally as invaluable as it was originally. I want to send you this t-shirt. Oh, I remember this fucking logo. Yeah, the ridiculous pets.com logo. See, now, this is pathetic. If you buy a recreation from somebody who's doing a terrible screen printing job on a terrible blank and you want this for $30. but it's not the original, then I'm sorry, but you do not have my respect.

If it's not an original, it's not worth it. No, this is not an original. And you know what's so funny? This t-shirt is a reference to the really famous pets.com ad that everyone do. But that was actually only a TV ad of that little pet guy. So somebody made this art or used AI to make this art? I know. It's really funny.

Because if you look back, they were not thinking of this. And much less thinking of putting a television ad and extending that television ad to a merch campaign, that was not what they were thinking of. I feel like today you know to stretch IP. Yes. You know, we gotta milk this and ring it for every drop of relevance and revenue, but I can't imagine being a grown-ass adult with all my faculties and spending even $30 on this t-shirt, but that's just me.

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These videos I make are entirely funded by you and I can't continue to make them without your support. So if you get any value out of the videos that I create and you want me to be able to create more, please support me on Patreon or Substack via the links below. On Patreon, I do bonus episodes, monthly Q&A live streams and post frequent updates about my work. My substack newsletter gives you a bi-weekly roundup of everything that I'm seeing and reading and paying attention to online. You can also get my newsletter on Patreon. Once again, the links to everything are below in the description. Every dollar of your support makes such a difference. Things started to kind of change in the early 2000s with Google. You mentioned the primary colors of the Apple collection. I think we can all picture the primary colors. There was the iconic little hat that they would wear with the little spinny on top. The Nugler hat is what they called it. That wasn't merch. But The merch that they launched around Androids was like, yeah, they had D-shirts and stuff, but they also had these little collectibles. The Android guy became this sort of iconic. Hear that?

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So Funkop is what I'm looking at. It's basically a proto funco pop that Android heads would love and put on their desk. I mean, I guess if having a normal Funko Pop is not embarrassing enough for you, you could have taken one step further as an Android user. You could get this. This was a promotional item. I don't imagine these wherever for sale. Yeah, it was mostly promotional.

So you would go to like the Google Developer Conference. I think they eventually did start selling them. But, you know, I worked on Android phone marketing around this time. This is your fault. You did this. This is your idea. They would just give this shit out. But even then, most of the Google merch that people had was tied to product launches, or it was people that worked at Google or had an affiliation.

For instance, they gave all of the early Google Maps guides. People that contributed a lot to Google Maps, they gave them this T-shirt with, you know, the little like pin logo on. So they gave those out. And it was meant to be like, you did something. So now we're going to give you this T-shirt. It seems like it might be worth a little bit of money or made Google Maps power users feel special. I can get behind that. I think it's so funny because imagine wearing something like that today.

We're like, I've done 27,000 reviews, but you saw this with early Twitter merch too. And this gets into more the early 2010s. When you start to see the startup ecosystem, people would wear like a t-shirt with a giant Twitter logo on it. Oh, just like the icon. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm picturing that shirt and thinking about how terrible it is. And it really comes down to what is the tastfulness or the timelessness, classicness, whatever, of the logo and the color scheme.

And it is funny looking back at the stuff that is now retro just because of the passage of time. In the moment, like we said, nobody really cared about that Apple stuff. They probably thought it was, you know, whatever the 80s, for corny was I guess maybe corny but that's how now the mindset I would have if I saw somebody wearing this we're not far enough removed and even if we had this conversation in 20 plus years 30 years whatever would that feel classic and timeless and I just don't know if that baby blue and that little bird would necessarily we're not far enough away it feels corny it feels corny it's all very millennial coded this whole early era I would say from 2005 to 2015 this was millennial

optimism. There's this excitement about tech. And another iconic piece of merch from this era is the Octocat figurine. This is GitHub. So in 2011, GitHub rebranded and it launched this Octocat, which is this little design. Have you seen this? No, this has never crossed my desk until now, almost thankfully, but yeah. Are you kidding me? Never seen the Octocat. This thing, it was such a, it was such a thing. This was always a part of the GitHub brand identity, but it's this little cat that's like, So like a half octopus. I think it was originally on the GitHub 404 page and it went so viral because everyone was like, this is so cool.

Half cat, half octopus, that's an affront to God. I don't actually think this is cool. This is monstrosity. It's so funny because the people that were on early Twitter were techies. They had a GitHub account. This thing became iconic. I have to tell you, these stupid figurines were all over. Tech people loved them.

But it is millennial funkop pop. Yes, totally. Absolutely. It's baby toys for adults, whether it's a funcopy pop. of Iron Man or the GitHub Octocat, it's cut from the same cloth. I'm not the target audience. No, it's just interesting how much of tech merch in the 2010s was figurine-based. Like you said, it was very toys for grown-ups.

It's also funny because in the 2010s, yes, there were the startup t-shirt saying the t-shirt persisted, but I feel like most of what was considered tech merch in the 2010s was actually stuff that tech people would wear. Like, I'm thinking of all birds or the Patagonia vest. It was more about this tech aesthetic. Sure. And the companies, I don't think, we're necessarily even doing partnerships with those. No, no, definitely not. I mean, as far as I know, because obviously any kind of corporate branded Patagonia vests has become an avatar for one of the least desirable members of society, regardless of industry, finance, tech, whatever.

And as far as I know, that's customization that is not happening with Patagonia. I mean, they're an extreme example of a corporation that probably hates that they've been associated with various other players that we mentioned and other ones. But we know tech guys love vests. I'll be clear a Patagonia vest is a great garment. It has form. It has function. Patagonia isn't cheap because it's well made. And the shit stands the test of time in terms of like wearability, just aesthetically,

typically classic styling and then just obviously the quality. So I can see the appeal of that as a wear. And then once it's customized with my favorite tech company, oh my God, that takes it to another level. But yeah, I'm almost positive. All that stuff is happening after market. And I don't know how much that even cost to buy in bulk. That's a bit of a, I mean, these companies have more money than God.

Getting the Patagonia invested then customized like a serious investment in your merch and swag repertoire versus making figurines in China. Right, exactly. Although I will say it became really reviled. So I feel like while tech was considered aspirational in the first half of the 2010s, after 2016, 2017 really is the beginning of the tech lash. And that's when people started to hate tech people and really affiliate them with finance people in 2019. Patagonia actually stopped allowing finance companies to put their logos on because I guess it was hurting their brand. I'm sure. Guilty by association, you know? Yeah. And it just felt like corporate capture. And that was part of this tech clash too where people were like, oh, that Patagonia with the Uber logo, you're actually evil.

Tech is not good. We don't like it anymore. We hate it, actually. This was peak tech clash. This is Cambridge Analytica. No one's wearing tech merch, basically. Well, respect to Patagonia for standing on business and being like, we don't even want your money. I know Patagonia has a really great reputation, I think, in terms of corporations. Not that the bar is subterranean if we're being frank, but shout out to them. I think I remember hearing that. I might have even covered it at the time wherever I was. But yeah, that's a nice little reminder that they didn't want the money. They'd rather have ethics, I guess.

This is also when a lot of those tech people started wearing co-paxy or whatever. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. Maybe you're pronouncing it so wrong that I don't know. I am Kotopaxi. What is that? Do you know what I'm talking about? No, I do not.

You have to know. Damn. Maybe I was the wrong guy to get on this show. No, it's just so popular in San Francisco. I feel like once the Patagonia start to take a stand, these tech people are not going to stop wearing thermal vests. And so I feel like they just switched to other brands. I have literally never heard of this brand in my entire life.

Another thing that I'm thankful for, if we're being totally honest, but this looks like the fakesst outdoor brand from like Austin or something that I've ever seen. This website is incredible because this looks legitimately, completely AI generated. And the prompt was come up. with the most generic outdoor brands for people that don't go outdoors. And hand up, if this actually is amazing quality shit that real gorpe heads love, my apologies, it just looks like it absolutely is for going to the coffee shop, then to the park to drink a bottle of natural wine.

So that is, I think, how most of these Silicon Valley techies are experiencing it. Then COVID hits. I feel like we got a little bit of a reset. And when I think of modern tech merch and the health cave that we live in now, I feel like it started with the drop era. I guess the tech people are always a little bit behind. So maybe if streetware was popular in like the 2010s, this is when they discovered the concept of streetware.

I feel like this started in 2021 with Figma. And Figma launches this merch store. And then my favorite moment was in 2022. Do you remember the Cash App Streetware drop? Well, as somebody who has partnered up with Cash App in a professional way, I don't want to disparage Cash App. We'll say this. I remember Cash App playing in the culture space.

Yes, I do, Taylor. I actually don't hate it. I don't hate it. It looks very 2022 already to me. I don't want to besmirch the brand partner because I just remember getting a lot of press releases about this. And I think they sent me some of it. It reminds me of the original Apple strategy where these jumpsuits, they have the little dollar sign on it. But you wouldn't know that any of this stuff is cash app.

Oh, no. This is like, what if cash app was online ceramics or something? Like back to a point that you made before we specifically were going down the cash app rabbit hole. The great contradiction about tech merch is that despite being an industry, like you said, that is always so future-looking. and is so focused on what can be and what's next, in terms of the pure aesthetics of product and clothing that they make, for the most part that I can tell, just doing a rough math, it's almost always 10 years behind what was a trend that was tip of the spear and the kind of niche world that I operate in.

But to me, yes, whether it's this cash app stuff or even obviously the new open AI lookbook or a palli or chore code, yeah, that would have hit literally 10 years ago. 10 years ago, the shit bangs. And it probably won't resonate to the audience that you're trying to sell now, who if they were to see that thing 10 years ago would be like, whoa, what is this? I can't even comprehend whether it's the look of this photo shoot or this product and trend specifically. But it was always funny to me that they can't hire somebody that or again, maybe that's not what the audience wants or the desired audience wants. They need to hit them over the head with something that is very obvious and has now in 10 years permeated the culture.

But it is just always funny to me how late they are. With anything, it's with clothing and merch. But it's funny because there was all this hatred of tech, right, in the beginning of the tech clash, and there still is for good reason. But it's interesting that all of these companies now at once, with the rise of AI, have leaned into becoming lifestyle brands. Like, they really want to insert themselves into the culture. And I do think that the cash app streetwear brand was the one that opened the door that was like, hey, maybe we can just make cool t-shirts and stuff. And then you have the open AI, which I guess the opening eye logo is still on it. But a lot of it is understated.

You have perplexity, figma, stripe. People are wearing the stuff that never worked at those companies. Right, right. You know what I mean? Like that didn't attend a booth at CES, right? They're buying it to signal something about themselves. As a fan, it's the, that's the sports team and this is their jersey, right? I think that's the most obvious comp. I understand why all these companies would do this. They're trying to Trojan horse the actual product and functionality that they believe is the future of the world and obviously their revenue stream. So they're trying to, like we're saying, create some type of lifestyle around it to make it something that it's like, I can't live without it. I can't even get dressed without open AI. I need my half zip or whatever it is that they're selling.

The basketball? Yeah. Again, a figurine is not cool anymore, but a basketball as an art piece, that's a thing that fashion people were doing. That's something that Supreme has done for years to great effect. These objects that are art pieces that you have been your home and you put on this place. I understand the thinking behind it. It's just, I don't know if you plan on having somebody on that wears or buys any of this stuff,

but that's who I would love to talk to. I've seen a lot of people defending this stuff on X, the Everything app. Well, X is where they go to post. I'm thinking of a really famous example of this. As you know, the AI companies are all obsessed with taste, right? It's not enough to just be like, I'm a tech guy. It's like, I'm a cultured plugged in guy. So in 2025, the general intelligence company, which is this AI company,

launched this sweater that went super viral. And then menswear people quickly pointed out, this is just like a rip off. Yeah, this was a rip off of an ERL sweater, yes, which very cool sweater, cool gradient. I understand why this is something that would seem ripe for ripping off. And I guess my question that I have when we go back to like this original example of this or even the new open AI lookbook that just looks like an Amay-Landor lookbook from 10 years ago, are there humans that are making this stuff or are these being made with AI prompts who are then combing the web and just pulling the shit in.

So of course it would be a cheap copy of a copy. Are there any humans involved in the rip-off process or is this what the machines are doing? Somebody posted this around the launch of the Open AI merge and they were like, they should have done a true slop themed. And I can't remember the designer where they tweeted images of these shoes that have another pair of shoes lute on them. You know, like, and it was like they should have leaned into the slop and made clothing that looked almost altered by AI. Like what actually would be a design from like Comde Garsohn or something like that. Yes. Of course, that's not going to happen because that is actually like a good idea from a human brain. That actually would be clever

and ironic. And no, that was never going to happen. This is what we get instead. I know. We got this. The other popular piece of in-demand tech gear lately has been the thinking cap from Anthropic. It's just a basic baseball cat that says the word thinking in the anthropic font, but people cannot get enough of them for some reason. Everyone wears hats. I get it. And there's no barrier really to entry with price, not trying to be a go-sh or whatever, but hats are relatively cheap. The merch hat, the slogan hat, this is a thing that has been around forever. There is seemingly always one that's going viral. Outdoor voices had a super popular one.

You see them all over New York. And then obviously, this is seemingly a really great entry-level way for people that aren't normally merch fans to dip their toe. And it's like, ooh, I got my Airwant baseball cap. Or just getting the merch from your favorite local hometown bars. Like, I get it. The ironic thing here, speaking of irony, is it's the thinking cap. Get it?

We're talking about what they could have done if they were actually smart and clever. This is the maxed out on the clever meter. The thinking cap, like literally. This is the best product, which isn't saying a lot, which is my point, coming out of this era. This is the one. What's so wild to be is there's so many knock-up versions of it now with the knockoff Claude logo. You want to meet the people that wear the merge? I'm like, who the hell is buying the knockoff TEMU version of the Claude thing? Again, advertising one of the biggest,

most powerful tech companies of all time. I don't know. Yeah. And that kind of gets into the Palantir Chorcoat too. Did you read that Atlantic story about the guy who spent a week in a Palantir Chorcoat? Oh, no. I mean, I saw the headline. How did his week go in a nutshell, if you could summarize? He is glazing it. I just sent you the link. Oh, shout out the Atlantic, of course. Everyone was hating on this thing so hard.

And then he wrote this 2000 word essay being like, I kind of like the coat. And it's like, oh, God. Bro, just buy a vintage French worker's chore coat. I will never read a single word of this article. So I'm just going to please speculate. I wonder if this guy was just, oh, damn. I now own cool classic piece of like stolen valor workwear,

which a lot of guys love. It makes them feel manly. It makes them feel comely. confident. I'm also speaking about myself. These are guys that wear a Carhart double knees with a hammer loop that haven't touched a hammer in years, right? Can I just read you the last paragraph of this piece? You need to hear what this man had to say. He says, if nothing else, the Palantir chore coat is an elaborate troll. In that sense, the jacket is perfect. No other product better encapsulates how exhausting and predictable it is to be online right now. The merch industrial complex

has come so far from KFC branded clogs and Panera's baguette purse that even a company like Palantir is hawking swags for the likes and lulls. Next month, Palantir plans to release a tennis skirt to celebrate America's 250th birthday, boxing gloves. One day, Eunice said he wants to drop a Palantir expression machine. Sure, why not? It's a bit sad, but so is the alternative

in which Palantir disappears entirely into the shadows. At least online, Palantir is just like everyone else. Okay, so this is just Elon Musk brain. He did it for the lulls. And then so Palantir paid him to write this. No, the Atlantic literally paid him to write this, which is so much. This is not an avatorial.

He's like, uh, it would be so sad if Palantir disappeared into the shadows. I think we would love that. That is an amazing kicker at the end there. I mean, listen, I understand that this guy has fucking online brain and he clearly has a lot of shit that he needs to handle himself, but never owned a chore coat before. Chorcoats, again, it's form meets function. It's this iconic classic menswear piece for reason. They come in and out of trendiness.

So right now, an actual menswear guy might be like, okay, we're selling our Chorcoats, especially when something like this comes out versus how many people were like lapping these up as recently as, I don't know, three years ago. But yeah, it's like maybe, maybe just get a chorecoat that's not advocating for the surveillance state. Maybe you just need a chor coat in your wardrobe. And the best part about this is, I don't know how much this was said publicly, but the reference of the chor coat with the Palantir Blue is to the iconic blue French workers jacket. So there actually is a kind of not exactly one for one, but there's a reference here that makes sense. I don't know if anyone from Palantir is like, that's why we chose a

This is how I'm just assuming it went. And that kind of style, that's an iconic piece. Bill Cunningham, that was famously a part of his uniform, one of the greatest streetstall photographers, is not the greatest of all time, someone who literally captured personal style for a living and defined that whole art form of street style, which now is an entire genre and fashion itself. But I see what Palantir is doing, but again, if you wear this, you're a fucking bozo. And you can try to pretend that you're doing it for the lulls and trolling all you want, you're a fucking moron. It's so embarrassing.

Giving Palantir a dollar is embarrassing. I think it's interesting, too, how much tech swag takes from menswear. There were always men's t-shirts, because again, default audience at these tech conventions back in the 90s, even, it was always men. But I feel like now in this latest era, the AI companies, they're all going towards menswear fashion. What do you think that's about? It's got to be a hedge that counteracts a lot of arguments and attacks that come at them

for just the culture that they want to destroy to create another one. And you brought it up this issue of taste where at the end of the day, the taste. of the human operating the AI, the taste still playing a part in artificial intelligence and how it's this great equalizer or separate on taste. And then it's just ironic for people that actually also to an unhealthy degree concern themselves with things like men's fashion and men's fashion trends in that industry, and I'm kind of speaking for myself here, how just the idea that you would bring artificial intelligence into the menswear conversation, I am sure that there are applications

and I'm not saying I advocate them, but I understand someone being like, it's going to help with production and logistics and any any industry fashion included but any fashion person that again is consumed with this kind of stuff even trying to have this conversation just proves that you actually have no taste or you have less taste than me so it's almost a non-starter even though it's obviously become this huge buzzword and crutch for the AI advocates it's just two groups of people that probably abhor the other the tech AI workers and also the fans of the AI companies which i guess there are a lot as you said they are so desperate to be seen as tastemakers and tasteful and cool because it's not cool to use AI and it's not cool to

outsource your taste to AI and so they have to do all this signaling and I feel like the companies are leaning into that so hard at this moment which is ironic because you're truly showing that you really have no taste if you are wearing the open AI merge yeah it's a trap that ultimately shows your whole ass I don't know if those people are self-aware they haven't caught on yet and it's like this hill that they are seemingly more than happy to continually die on whether it's in a public forum like X or whatever. Though I guess I will say at the end of the day, you and I could hate all we want. A lot of this shit does sell out and it's not cheap.

The Claude stuff too has become such an influencer. And I also wonder the role that influencers play because these companies especially anthropic and meta as well, they're doing so much influencer outreach right now and at these events, they're giving away the merch and so you see these West Village girlies taking the picture in the Claude hat. And so I feel like that also makes it aspirational to people that follow them. You know what I mean? Oh, I would be remiss not to use your platform to say, I'm available to be bought to buy any of these companies.

Everyone's got a price. In all seriousness, you're right. For the AI advocates to make this thing a real culture shifter that they truly believe in their heart of hearts that it will be, you do need cool mouthpieces and cool, sexy people, for lack of a better term, to get on board, and you can buy those people, and a lot of them live in the West Village. You know, they got rent. It ain't cheap to live there. They're the ones that brought the prices up.

Yeah, the AI companies, especially. think want to be integrated into the fashion world and seen as part of a fashion world as they also move into wearables and as they move into these pins and these watches and these meta glasses they have to be seen as fashion forward and something that people would wear which actually apple has done a good job of it's not necessarily cool but apple's enough of a lifestyle company that people will put something apple they'll wear the big headphones yeah oh no totally and i think a great example of if you were going to do this there is a right way i remember when the apple watch i don't know if it was was launched but They partnered with Hermes, the most storied greatest leather-making luxury brand in the world with a ton of heritage.

And they made a strap. They're like, we want this to be this high-end, cool, wearable that's going to permeate culture. And we want fashionable people to wear it. Let's create a high-end mod for this thing. And they went to the best in the business to do that. And I'm sure there are other examples of that and there will be more to come. But that to me is maybe, I want to say, the lawful way to do it. But how about this? Not completely fucking embarrassing.

If you're going to wear an Apple Racha and you have the Hermes strap on it. And I know that is a sad thing to admit, oh, it's cool because it has an ermish strap on it. But that was what they were trying to accomplish. And in terms of that goal happening, he kind of did. At least in my eyes, I guess I've been tricked. But that's a specific example of when it works. And we can bring these two worlds together. The bigger point for me that it's just crazy.

I know this and I think about this because I talk about this for a living. But having this conversation with you and not even just fashion, but specifically menswear, it's crazy how much it's mainstream culture now, which is amazing as someone who's been doing this for nearly two decades where it's something that's like a niche online interest that bubbles and catches on slowly but surely kind of like a slow burn and here we are now where we're talking about a palanteer chorecoat in the menswear conversation. It's kind of wow the menswear has become a hobby or an interest for enough guys that you and I can have this conversation that will hopefully be interesting to somebody. Hear that? It's your money calling.

It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings. with the Scotia high interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit Scotia Bank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. It's interesting how knowing a lot about menswear is seen as tasteful,

like you're tasteful, you're in the know, you're up with it or whatever. Whereas women's fashion, like if you know a lot about women's fashion, it's not that aspirational. And I don't know why. I think it's a popularity thing. I think men's work's relative is still smaller in terms of business and then even the amount of people that treat it as a hobby, which I think is also a double-edged store because ultimately I would hope that most people, if they care about fashions for reasons like self-expression and confidence, not, oh, I don't care about anything else. I like buying stuff. So I'm going to make this thing where I buy things my hobby, which I know that's the world we live in and a lot of things fall into that trap.

But you know what it is? It's almost like an acceptable maybe cool guy version of just nerding out about something to a select group of people online. So it's like an acceptable fandom versus fucking Marvel or Perry Potter. I don't know, something else. I think especially as these tech companies try to go further and further into the menswear space and the fashion space and make themselves cooler and it was also interesting to see everyone at Sun Valley and see what complete slubs all of these AI CEOs look like with one notable exception. And I think this is the only company that should be allowed to make tech merch. And that is Ivan Zau, who is the founder of Notion.

Did you see this picture of him that went viral? Oh, yes, I did. Yeah, mainly because in one of my menswear group chats, because yes, again, I'm so cool, the group was debating if this was, because it looks like vintage Armani. So then the question was, is this an Armani just reissued a lot of that archive stuff under a line called Archevio. And the debate was, is this vintage Armani? Is this a new vintage?

Is it even Armani? So yes, I did see this picture as an example of a fly-ass nerd. Yeah, he was like the one guy that actually dressed cool while everybody else is wearing their schlubby, Kotopaxi, Arcteric Patagonia. vests and everything else right right right you see it was Zuckerberg sitting front row at Prada and like you said there's a lot of reasons why tech and fashion are kind of commingling and becoming intertwined but I think as like we said fashion and specifically menswear and a lot of these CEOs are men I mean let's be

honest so like they're wearing men's clothing 10 years ago five years ago if you asked me like a tech CEO not even just be sitting front row at Prada but would even just wear Prada probably not even if a brand like Prada and specifically some of their nylon stuff has become an easy signifier for things like taste if you can just afford it just wear that head to toe or like an isameyaki pleats please kind of outfit something that's easy maybe it's a uniform these guys love their uniforms because they want to be as efficient as possible and God forbid you get creative in the morning about what you want to wear

to put your best foot forward no pun intended it is interesting to see how the fact that this even happened is kind of like proof that menswear is big business and it's a big deal to a lot of different people even these kind of guys that used to be extremely schlobby to an unhealthy degree And as menswear becomes more integrated with tech and AI, this specific era of the tech boom, they're getting more formal. It's not just the notion CEO, but I also think of the TBPN guys. There was an article in the Times recently about their power suits and they're always dressed up in suits. They're always looking formal.

I feel like a lot of this current AI taste slop or whatever you want to call it and the way that these tech guys are dressing and trying to lean more into menswear, it is just the complete opposite of the early 2010 tech guy with an Octo Cat T-Shine. shirt and skinny jeans. It goes back to the idiom, dress for the job you want. This is something that is happening in politics. Hassan Piker talked to us about this on Throne Fits and more people are coming in this now, but his idea of getting to suits so that when he does pop up on Fox News and they're disparaging him and playing some clip out of context, the person watching that might

pay closer attention because he looks the part, or the part that they see in their mind. You know, still gives a guy like Hassan in this example, the opportunity to have fun with it and not just wear something from suit supply or whatever. But yeah, I understand why if the TBPN guys want to be seen at that. as anchors or hosts. Why not dress what people see in their minds eye or the platonic ideal of that person? And they're experts. These two guys exited massive startups and they're multi, multi millionaires, even before they did their show, their authorities in tech. There was this huge gala in San Francisco just earlier this week for this big tech policy think tank. And it was black tie.

And all of these tech people were like, wow, we need more of this. It's like they just discovered the concept of wearing a suit. And it's funny too, because if you look at the photos of the black tie. Everyone's in cocktail attire pretty much. Yeah, yeah, sure. But they're trying. And I think they're trying to also formalize this industry and this boom and all of it. Yeah, it's nice to see people making an effort. With that said, I think that that's just the first step because frankly, I know what you're talking about. Photos from that gal weren't great. I know one of these TBPN guys follows me on Instagram. Let me help you style, dude. You're wearing the suit. That's great. We can always do better. I think is what

I'm trying to say. Always just do a little bit better. Well, Lawrence, thank you so much for joining me today to chat about all of this. You know me. I love to sound of my own voice, so I'm just happy to hear from you and get to Yap. Appreciate it, Taylor. All right, that's it for this week's episode of Power User User. User. Use. My work, please, please buy a paid subscription to my substack newsletter at UserMag. dot co. That's UserMag.com or you can get my newsletter on Patreon. I send a weekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and following online. I have no long-term brand partners. I get one-off ad deals now and then, but basically the only way that I'm able to continue to do this show and produce my work and remain an independent journalist is because of your support.

So please, please buy a paid subscription. That's usermag.co or my Patreon linked below. On both my Patreon and my substack, I do monthly bonus episodes. You'll get access to the full Vod of my weekly Free Speech Friday live streams. I take episode suggestions ideas and you'll be ensuring that I can remain independent. Thanks so much for watching. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode of Power User. See you then.