[neom]

Instead of sitting in my office doing my work, then, spending a few minutes to verify once they're done, I'd sit in the kitchen next to them checking it as they went, being both distracted AND probably spending more time. I'd much rather trust but verify.

[Izkata]

There's a much closer example I think people here would naturally understand and even advocate for, without connecting it to the phrase:

"Trust but verify" means letting a junior do the work you assigned them, then checking it afterwards in testing and code review. Not trusting would be doing it yourself instead of assigning it to them. Trusting but not verifying would be assigning them the work then pushing it live without testing it.

[consteval]

I would say in this instance you don't trust the junior. In fact in corporations, I would say there's very little trust.

We used to trust people to just do what they think is best. But then we get bribery, harassment, lawsuits... we don't do that anymore.

In my opinion, not having trust is not a bad thing. It has a poor connotation so the result is that we modify the meaning of trust so we can say everyone trusts everything.

For example, one thing I trust is Nutrition Facts. I trust that what I'm eating actually contains what it says it contains. I don't verify it. Why? Because I know someone, somewhere is looking out for this. The FDA does not trust the food industry, so sometimes they audit.

There's many, very good, things I don't trust. I don't trust the blind spot indicator in my car. I turn my head every time. Does that mean the technology is bad? No, in my opinion, but I still don't trust it.