[vertis]

> Patrick has proactively told me when wanting to build competitive products, even when he didn't have to (very positive sum thinking).

I used to get very frustrated at a previous job (realestate.com.au) that they would treat their main competitor in such a venomous way.

If the features looked similar then they 'copied' if they launched a feature first then denigrate it until you can launch the same feature. There are only so many ways you can do a real estate (car, job) ad portal. Especially if you're following best practice UI/UX guidelines.

I get being competitive, but you can be competitive and still be civil. Making the other company to be an arch-villain is such small-minded zero-sum thinking.

Sadly there were also many things where they could have worked on collaboratively to make everyone's lives better (e.g. Rental standards and processes), but this is impossible when you frame the competitor in such a negative way.

[ZephyrBlu]

If the market isn't growing, it is a zero-sum game so this behaviour isn't surprising.

[ksec]

This. It is important to remember not everyone works in Tech. Many commodity markets are zero-sum game. Which is often why Tech circle don't understand a thing about other market. You cant apply the same thinking to everything.