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Accusing interpretations of being "uncharitable" feels really odd when we're talking about communication training material. It's not some Slack thread taken out of context, we're reading quotes from reviewed and crafted material.

Also I don't see how changing "Cut off competitors' access to target" to "Integrate target with Google" matches your idealistic view of "focus on our product; competition is good and okay".

They basically acknowledge competition will be crushed, and are asking for appropriate communication to avoid troubles. It makes sense from Google's point of view, but I don't see why we should be advocating for them in any way.

I think you are reading something into it that is not necessarily there. The slides give examples of things that are appropriate to say and are not appropriate to say. It doesn't necessarily mean that one thing has to changed into the other.

That "good vs bad" table doesn't work if the element on the same line don't refer to the same situations/behaviors. The examples above of reneging "Dominant" for "Successful" is a clear example of that.

Just like the 1984 party so the article is spot on.

But it is not training material that tries to convey "focus on the product".

It's literally communication guidelines of a profit oriented company dominating it's market in a monopolistic way that says "avoid talking about market or market share, this is bad"

The only way to have a "charitable" interpretation of this is to partake in their game, imho.

Whether it is charitable or uncharitable depends on your subjective interpretation of the intent of the training material. But I think the focus on not talking about market share is a huge sign that this material is not written with good intentions. That makes very little sense.

If the material was written exactly the opposite, it'd almost make more sense, most companies want a high awareness of their market share... unless they're worried about being hit with an anti-trust case.

And so, when it comes to banning phrases like "crush the competition" it's not that rule alone which is worrying, it's the whole package.

Your argument is also a bit flawed, in that the alternative isn't training material that encourages talking about "crushing the competition". The realistic alternative is that the training material wouldn't have to mention it at all. Either because the company doesn't have a problem with that kind of culture, or because the company isn't close to being a monopoly, such that talking about "crushing the competition" would just be interpreted as healthy competitiveness.

To simplify - if the actions of an entity are bad (or perceived as bad), then whether they are saying truth about those actions or lies - DOESN'T MATTER AT ALL. So yes, indeed, Google will be damned whatever they say, as long as their actions stay the same.

> This is such an uncharitable interpretation of the training materials. The material there is not saying "if you want to speak about things that raise antitrust concerns, use this coded language", it's saying "don't do these things, and just focus on building a good product".

That is a very charitable interpretation of the training materials.

I disagree.

When I was at IBM 15 years ago, IBM was far from being a monopoly, since there were plenty of competitors in the hardware space (HP, Sun, Dell, etc) and in the software space (Oracle, SAP, etc.) and in the Services space (Accenture, PwC, KPMG, etc.) employees still had to complete annual legal training that was very similar to what was described in the post.

Any large company with half-way competent legal counsel is going to tell their employees not to say, "our goal is to crush our competitors, dominate the market, and hear the lamentation of their women." Instead they will tell their employees to focus on making life better for their customers. It's a much healthier way for product managers to focus, and what you might do if the goal is "crush/dominate the competition" is not the same than if the goal is delight the customer. So it's not just a messaging strategy to prevent embarassing e-mails from coming out at trial; it's a business strategy, too.

Your comment shows that it works, exactly like the article says it does.

Every now and then I'm reminded of a) how much of HN has never worked for a large company, and b) how unfamiliar much of HN is with common business and legal practices.

Too many thought leaders masquerading as engineers.

You're being cryptic. The people your criticizing (this might include me, i have no way of knowing) will not be able to learn anything from your reply. It would be more constructive I'd you shared your thoughts so we'd have a chance to improve. What is your point, exactly? Spell it out for us, please.

This kind of training is incredibly standard practice at large companies.