[timmaxw]

The full quote from the trial exhibit is:

> When talking about revenue, we could mostly ignore the demand side of the equation (users and queries) and only focus on supply side of advertisers, ad formats, and sales. Sure, we had to build the best product, made smart marketing/distribution investments to get our product everywhere, but we could essentially tear the economics textbook in half.

They explicitly mention "we had to build the best product", so I'm not sure where you're getting the "not any product attributes" bit from. (Your linked article is paywalled.)

[pdonis]

> They explicitly mention "we had to build the best product"

But to them, "the best product" is the one that maximizes their profits from ads, not the one that does the best job of giving users what they want. Obviously there is overlap between these, but they're not the same thing.

[timmaxw]

At tech companies I've worked at, when people use phrases like "the best product" or "product quality", they are in fact using those phrases to mean "the product that does the best job of giving users what they want".

[pdonis]

> when people use phrases like "the best product" or "product quality", they are in fact using those phrases to mean "the product that does the best job of giving users what they want".

Perhaps, but Google's actual behavior makes it clear that, whether they want to admit it or not, Google's executives are not using the terms that way.

[salawat]

Not in any of the companies I've been at, no matter how hard I've fought to make it so.