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Comment by flak48 | Hacker News Reader

I don't work at Google but I had to take similar training too, where using words/phrases like 'dominant', 'market share', 'leading in a market' etc were discouraged. Specifically because the 'market' can be interpreted in a zillion different ways, especially for tech companies.

Don't think this kind of thing is new, rare or shocking.

Peter Thiel in Zero to One also gives examples of how a company can be considered a monopoly and not a monopoly by simply increasing the definition and size of the market that the company is operating in. (And how companies will generally try to avoid being classified as monopolies this way)

e.g. Google is a monopoly if you consider online advertising as the market, but if you stretch the market to all advertising (including print, radio, TV and billboards), Google might not be considered one.

Similarly Amazon in the e-commerce market vs general retail.

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Yep. This is hardly new. I have been at Google since the mid 2000s and this stuff has been around at least since then. There was also a similar training when I was at Microsoft.

Btw, in the trainings I've taken, it's not just about avoiding specific words, but avoiding the thoughts behind those words. Our goal shouldn't be to "dominate the competition/market." The goal should be creating compelling experiences and products for our customers. Staying focused on the latter goal is long term better business and better global citizenship.

I think saying that Google does this to "head off regulators" is not really fair. That's like saying "asdfasgasdgasdg pays their taxes to head off the IRS." I guess? In some sense we all follow the law partly in order to avoid the consequences of not doing so but it seems pejorative to say it this way. It makes it sound like there are a lot of other people who are paying their taxes out of the goodness of their hearts, but I'm the bad person who is only doing so to avoid legal consequences.

> Btw, in the trainings I've taken, it's not just about avoiding specific words, but avoiding the thoughts behind those words.

It could be to keep the trainings themselves from looking bad during discovery.

You can always come up with a sinister motivation for a good act. The question is whether there's evidence to support that surmise. I guess that's why sometimes it's best to look at the effects of the system rather than the intention behind it. Do the training actually have the effects that one would desire from them, if one had good intentions? At least in my case, the answer is yes. I have never thought about my work in terms of besting the competition. But then again I'm nobody important so what I think doesn't matter all that much. It would be interesting to know the mind of the executives whose thoughts on this subject might actually have an impact. Maybe during the upcoming lawsuits we'll be able to see more deeply into what they have been thinking.

> You can always come up with a sinister motivation for a good act.

You can also come up with a beneficial motivation for a sinister (or at least, not morally positive) act. (This is the one Google employs.) Google is a corporation, and it exists to extract money effectively from others to make it's shareholders rich.

If a corporation says it is doing something for the good of the public, it's because looking good has positive value for the corporate brand. To some degree, there is also value in convincing employees that they are benefiting society as well: They work harder and above requirements without you having to pay them more, and they'll defend and advocate for their employer on social media for free. ;) That, of course, also has a positive value for the corporate brand.

I definitely think the revealed internal emails (from all of Big Tech) will be exciting to see. It wasn't a surprise, for instance, but the emails about how Kindle purchases in iOS were shut down by Apple because of an Amazon ad about how Kindle books could come with you from iPhone to Android was very, very blunt.

[Google/corporations] exist to extract money effectively from others to make it's shareholders rich . . .

. . . by giving people something they want more than the money they're exchanging with the corporation. It's a positive sum game, at least in my estimation. But, yes, Google is not a charity, and I don't mean to pretend that it is more noble than it is. I'm not a charity either. I wouldn't do my work for free.

But I don't blame anyone for being suspicious of Google or any other corporation's behavior. It's important to verify that corporations are behaving, because there have been plenty of instances of corporate malfeasance in the past.

> there is also value in convincing employees that they are benefiting society as welll: They work harder and above requirements without you having to pay them more, and they'll defend and advocate for their employer on social media for free. ;)

Convincing one's employees of a particular perspective or belief has been a basic tactic of large corporations for decades. Tech culture disrupted this for a little bit, though.

> Our goal shouldn't be to "dominate the competition/market." The goal should be creating compelling experiences and products for our customers.

Googler also. I believe that the phrase used to capture the desired mindset is "respect the opportunity".

Ugh. I detest that phrase. :( It sounds so corporate.

Doesn't sound corporate to me at all. Corporate to me is things like "increase synergy". Respecting the opportunities available to you by showing respect for your competitors who are just like you at the end of the day seems like a pretty real and relatable recommendation.

If you need to remind yourself that you need to “respect the competition”, you’re probably a monopoly.

i disagree - to me, "respect the competition" means don't grow complacent.

ebay, for example, doesn't respect the competition (and has grown correspondingly complacent), and it's why sites like reverb are popping up and serving niches far better than ebay does.

I think it's about cultivating a healthier mindset about why you develop products, in particular avoiding the trap of zero sum, win/lose thinking.

> it's not just about avoiding specific words, but avoiding the thoughts behind those words.

People are always trying to control the thoughts of others by banning certain words. Is there any evidence it works? I've seen plenty of evidence it does not, as the new word simply takes on the meaning of the old one. Then that new word gets banned as well.

The intent was not to control the thoughts by banning the words. The intent was to discourage action based on thoughts of domination, because it is illegal. "These are some things you should not do. Writing down these words would indicate you are doing one of the proscribed actions do don't do that either."

> People are always trying to control the thoughts of others by banning certain words.

I can really only think of one truly banned word....

To give context, WalterBright is a libertarian with a clear bent to ignore white supremacy in western culture. He is also known for other reasons.

Right, and it’s also a culture thing.

If you are operating in the Valley then you get startupy folks who really think in terms of “that’ll crush our competition”... Maybe that is an intrinsic sort of motivation, talking to yourself like that? But it’s not a great culture for the company as a whole because it creates an implicit assumption of a zero-sum game. Like strategically you want to instead be saying something like “they can have that space and we are going to differentiate ourselves by leading in this other space” then you foster a culture of creativity rather than competition. And that then infects the rest, like whether your employees are trying to squeak by on 4 hours of sleep—one culture says “fuck yes we gotta keep crushing it” and the other says “I need you to take a day off because I need you at your best and this is you running at 20%.”

Google is weird because the company internals seem to be structured for maximum recruitment; it is meant to be a developer’s paradise. Conventional companies are structured around their executives, it is a paradise for the leadership. Google culture is very focused on creating a paradise for the coders.

Not saying that it doesn't also limit Google’s liability, of course it does, so Legal probably also wants to limit discussion about beating the crap out of any other company in the market. But if you really think your employees are all artists, it is weird to hear artists get super-competitive.

they can have that space and we are going to differentiate ourselves by leading in this other space

Be careful with this one. It can be illegal to agree not to compete (INAL).

Could you elaborate on this? How would it be illegal to target a different market?

If Google colludes with Microsoft to decide each can have one market, free of competition, that would be illegal.

For example, Google trades the sub-thousand dollar laptop market (ceasing development of Chromebooks) for a monopoly in search.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel

Cartels are usually thought of as groups in the same market colluding, but it's not limited to that. Two companies colluding not to compete in their respective markets is still a cartel.

Right, but what was described is not collusion. It's just targeting a different market without much existing competition.

> e.g. Google is a monopoly if you consider online advertising as the market, but if you stretch the market to all advertising (including print, radio, TV and billboards), Google might not be considered one.

Only a very narrow definition of online advertising would leave Google as a monopoly. Both Amazon and Facebook make a lot of money charging companies to promote products online.

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.[1]

1. https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Don't think this kind of thing is new, rare or shocking.

I think if you're entombed in the SV bubble, it might not be. But to the rest of the world, it's kind of head-shaking.

Maybe it's because of the industries I've worked in, but clarity of communication was valued, encouraged, and even something we had training in. Say what you mean, so misunderstandings don't lead to mistakes.

The public relations people were trained in what not to say, because that was their job. But for everyone else, internal expression wasn't squelched out of fear of external forces.

It really depends on how big the company you work at is and what space they work in.

A small company will usually not have that really. A large one has regulators looking at them and someone looking to sue to get a slice of the pie. Your emails and texts are subject to ending up in a legal case. They can use your stuff out of context and say you were doing something else. Remember they will lie about you. As they do not care about truth they want to win for their client (be it the gov or someone else). Can they get in trouble for that? Sure. But sometimes they just see if they can get away with it. Usually they just get told no, usually.

I have never worked a day in SV. This sort of training is common in big companies.

> But for everyone else, internal expression wasn't squelched out of fear of external forces.

I recall my reaction when doing that training; it was less a feeling of internal expression being restricted by force. But rather a vague feeling in the back of my mind, that if I care about the value of my stock comp, it probably makes sense to avoid putting my company in trouble by mistake.

I'm not saying that's the most rational reaction but that's what I recall feeling anyway (this was a few years ago). A slightly cynical take would perhaps be that my company bought my complicity for a few RSUs. :shrug:

> I think if you're entombed in the SV bubble, it might not be. But to the rest of the world, it's kind of head-shaking.

It's not an SV thing, it applies to any industry that is under close regulatory scrutiny.

Adam Levine mentioned this a few days ago in his column, when reporting on the Big Tech deposition. Bezos basically keeps expanding the definition of 'market' until he basically says Amazon can't be a monopoly since 99% of all sales in America don't go through Amazon, at which point there can never be a monopoly!

What's the point of saying "Peter Thiel says" when stating basic facts?

May as well say "Wikipedia says"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

"Establishing dominance" section.

I had read the book, but not the Wikipedia article.

I think whether one finds this kind of newspeak shocking depends on how you view this:

Lens #1: This jumping through terminology hoops is a burden one has to undergo because of living in a litigious society. Having to resort to newspeak is not your fault, it's the government's, for creating all these rules and regulations.

Lens #2: If monopolies are bad for capitalism, then companies should not just in word but also in deed refrain from pursuing monopolization. Resorting to newspeak is hypocrisy: an attempt to continue monopolistic actions in practice while disclaiming them in speech.

Those both seem like bad lenses. A more positive approach is that it's not just about what you say, it's about what you do. People working at a powerful company shouldn't advocate doing things to crush competitors, not only for legal reasons, but because it's not right. And that's why there are laws.

As the comic says, with great power comes great responsibility.

But focusing on specific words adds concreteness for literal-minded folks who might otherwise talk that way out of habit.

Yes, because changing the words will change the facts - not. You can try to squirm all you want to try to make a monopoly into something that it isn't but that's a lot harder than it may seem and not everybody will be sensitive to such word games. Some might even say that such word games in and of themselves should constitute evidence that a company is a monopoly, it is knowingly misrepresenting the status quo as something that it isn't.

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