Full disclosure: I am easily amused by things that amuse almost no one else. The good news is: David is wrenching, Mercedes is driving, and Jason is drawing, so there are very few people to stop me from writing a post that I’ve needed to write for a while. And that’s a post about Power Jeans.
“What are Power Jeans?” you ask, unaware that you’ve already fallen into my trap. This is not the official name for these, and I’d accept “execudenim” or “C-Suite Dungarees” or whatever. I just call them Power Jeans.
It’s when an executive–in our case, from a car company, usually–is paired with someone from a hip, new startup business, and they have to wear jeans for the announcement photoshoot. And my favorite Power Jeans wearer is former Credit Suisse banker and GM executive Dan Ammann.
So, above we’ve got Ammann (far right, below) with Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt (center) and COO Dan Kan, presumably from when GM bought Cruise and Ammann joined the board (he was GM President at the time). This would all end with Vogt calling GM a bunch of idiots, and GM’s new President telling Vogt to screw-off.
But not before some more jeans photos:
Here’s another one. Also with Ammann!
Ammann, again, in the power jeans and blazer look. Also, brown shoes. The difference here is that the two Lyft founders don’t have to even pretend to wear a jacket, because they’re too cool, man. Side note: How many mobility companies has GM invested in over the years? Is it all of them?
This isn’t to imply that Ammann doesn’t want to wear jeans. He grew up on a farm in New Zealand, so he seems fairly comfortable in them, but it does seem to be the automatic choice for when someone from a traditional OEM meets with a “disruptor.” Here’s VW’s Oliver Blume, left, with RJ Scaringe from Rivian, right. Scaringe always has jeans on.
Here’s some more Scaringe power jeans:
That man knows how to hold a shovel. The guy on the right definitely did not get the memo and looks ridiculous in slacks. I’m sorry. It had to be said.
Blume seems to like the look, which might explain why this is one of 12 photos that show up when you search the VW press site for his name:
They’re a little skinny, but not much skinnier than the ones I normally wear. Apparently, this is going out of fashion, so I’m open to the first executive walking around in Power JNCOs.
The one rule of Power Jeans, though, is that they can be black or blue or even tan, but they can never be white for … obvious reasons.
Lead photo: GM
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