It could be that my initial instinct is to negatively interpret any comments made by people such as the CEO of a company like Intuit, but it strikes me that to argue that your business practices...
It could be that my initial instinct is to negatively interpret any comments made by people such as the CEO of a company like Intuit, but it strikes me that to argue that your business practices are acceptable because there are viable, or "formidable" as Goodarzi phrases it, competitors in the scene and then immediately follow that argument up with an admission that you bought the main competitor is a little lacking in self-awareness. To then suggest the idea that the United States Government building a solution, a "competitor to corporate offerings", is a waste of time, and taxpayer money, because Intuit's software already exists feels particularly shitty.
Goodarzi's answers are lacking in any admission of guilt, like any good corporate figurehead's comments should be, and entirely deflective- answering the question about dark design patterns with a two paragraph long and aggravatingly generic spiel about "always trying to improve as a company".
On the one hand it's good to see a news outlet refusing to bend and releasing parts of an interview that the interviewee or a representative of the interviewee would not like made public, but on the other hand- why do we continue to play this game? Why do we continue to sit awful people down for a talk, tentatively accuse them of malicious (or at least self-serving) behaviour, and then print their HR approved word-salad responses?
I think hearing from executives is somewhat valuable (to me at least) in that, even if they say nothing of substance, how defensive they get and the ways in which and how aggressively they avoid...
I think hearing from executives is somewhat valuable (to me at least) in that, even if they say nothing of substance, how defensive they get and the ways in which and how aggressively they avoid actually answering any questions can be pretty revealing. Helps distinguish between, for example, an Intuit who actively engages in public harm and making things worse in the service of profit and can't defend their actions at all, versus an Apple who I think also does a lot of public harm, but at least they are able to discuss the things they do in a way that couches it as a good thing. I mean I'd personally still put Apple towards the evil end of the scale, but probably not as far as Intuit.
Of course I recognize that could just be a matter of some companies being better at PR and smoke-screening their nefarious deeds than others, but I still like having actual data to feed into my perceptions versus just going off blind vibes alone.
I'm less surprised they would ask for that and more surprised they agreed to an interview that would allow for coverage of those topics to begin with, as they had to know those types of questions...
I'm less surprised they would ask for that and more surprised they agreed to an interview that would allow for coverage of those topics to begin with, as they had to know those types of questions would be asked. Intuit is well known for lobbying against government simplifying taxes and also that settlement for lying about free filing. Of course those would be topics of interest.
This is why you largely don't have these kind of interviews anymore, because most people know better than to engage in them because there's no reasonable way out of the uncomfortable parts. The interviewer has a responsibility to bring them up and try to get a real answer because otherwise it looks like they're a shill, and the interviewee has to perfectly recite canned answers that evade the question because there's no honest answer they can give that won't be egg all over their face.
Well, there is: Stop doing the uncomfortable things. Something something guilty conscious. Just that, you know, they really don't want to do that. So they'd rather sue anybody who makes them look bad.
no reasonable way out of the uncomfortable parts.
Well, there is: Stop doing the uncomfortable things. Something something guilty conscious. Just that, you know, they really don't want to do that. So they'd rather sue anybody who makes them look bad.
It could be that my initial instinct is to negatively interpret any comments made by people such as the CEO of a company like Intuit, but it strikes me that to argue that your business practices are acceptable because there are viable, or "formidable" as Goodarzi phrases it, competitors in the scene and then immediately follow that argument up with an admission that you bought the main competitor is a little lacking in self-awareness. To then suggest the idea that the United States Government building a solution, a "competitor to corporate offerings", is a waste of time, and taxpayer money, because Intuit's software already exists feels particularly shitty.
Goodarzi's answers are lacking in any admission of guilt, like any good corporate figurehead's comments should be, and entirely deflective- answering the question about dark design patterns with a two paragraph long and aggravatingly generic spiel about "always trying to improve as a company".
On the one hand it's good to see a news outlet refusing to bend and releasing parts of an interview that the interviewee or a representative of the interviewee would not like made public, but on the other hand- why do we continue to play this game? Why do we continue to sit awful people down for a talk, tentatively accuse them of malicious (or at least self-serving) behaviour, and then print their HR approved word-salad responses?
I think hearing from executives is somewhat valuable (to me at least) in that, even if they say nothing of substance, how defensive they get and the ways in which and how aggressively they avoid actually answering any questions can be pretty revealing. Helps distinguish between, for example, an Intuit who actively engages in public harm and making things worse in the service of profit and can't defend their actions at all, versus an Apple who I think also does a lot of public harm, but at least they are able to discuss the things they do in a way that couches it as a good thing. I mean I'd personally still put Apple towards the evil end of the scale, but probably not as far as Intuit.
Of course I recognize that could just be a matter of some companies being better at PR and smoke-screening their nefarious deeds than others, but I still like having actual data to feed into my perceptions versus just going off blind vibes alone.
I'm less surprised they would ask for that and more surprised they agreed to an interview that would allow for coverage of those topics to begin with, as they had to know those types of questions would be asked. Intuit is well known for lobbying against government simplifying taxes and also that settlement for lying about free filing. Of course those would be topics of interest.
This is why you largely don't have these kind of interviews anymore, because most people know better than to engage in them because there's no reasonable way out of the uncomfortable parts. The interviewer has a responsibility to bring them up and try to get a real answer because otherwise it looks like they're a shill, and the interviewee has to perfectly recite canned answers that evade the question because there's no honest answer they can give that won't be egg all over their face.
Well, there is: Stop doing the uncomfortable things. Something something guilty conscious. Just that, you know, they really don't want to do that. So they'd rather sue anybody who makes them look bad.