
Ask HN: Did we learn anything revelatory from yesterday's tech CEO testimony? - jedberg
I&#x27;m wondering if anyone watched&#x2F;read all the testimony and if there was anything interesting or groundbreaking that we didn&#x27;t already know?  Or was it all just grandstanding from the politicians?
======
giantg2
I didn't read all of it, but I didn't see anything major in the parts I did
read.

Most of these congressional investigations are pedantic fluff, questions to
garner political points with constituents, and well rehearsed answers/talking
points. With the level of coaching CEOs at that level receive, both in general
communications and relationship management as well as specific coaching for
the investigation, there's almost no chance of anything truly earth-shattering
coming out.

Maybe I'm just a sad, jaded individual contributor...

~~~
jedberg
Nowadays you're probably right. I remember when the big tobacco execs came up,
that's when we learned that they had previously known about the ill effects of
smoking.

I guess these days CEOs are better prepared to dodge those kinds of questions.

~~~
giantg2
Didn't they all lie and say they didn't think tobacco was addictive? I thought
it wasn't their testimony that revealed anything, but they used the hearings
to show the scientific studies and testimony of underlings to prove it was a
lie.

~~~
jedberg
I could very easily be misremembering or remembering a movie and not real
life.

~~~
rl3
You might be thinking of _The Insider (1999)_ , though that film was mostly
faithful to the real life story behind the _60 Minutes_ investigation.[0]

What you were probably thinking of can be found at 2:00 in the video below.
Seven tobacco industry CEOs testifying at once, affectionately referred to as
the "seven dwarfs".

 _The Insider_ is in my opinion excellent, and highly recommended.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_-Vu8LrUDk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_-Vu8LrUDk)

------
ideals
One thing that stood out to me was each CEO declaring their unwaivering
support for the police and US military when pressed by Republican members. It
was presented as a false dichotomy of course, but none took a stand of
hesitation towards that support.

This goes contradictory to what they've communicated to their employees as of
late.

I understand they can be speaking in false promises but it was interesting to
see them all tow the line when asked.

My question now is, how do the employees of these companies feel about the
public position their CEOs took yesterday on that?

------
deeblering4
In a nutshell they answered “I don’t agree with that characterization” or “I
don’t remember, can I follow up with your office?” to a lot of the questions.
Followed by waffling on about their mission statement until being interrupted
with the next question. To me it came off as a group of CEOs giving long
winded non-answers. Not much substance.

------
duxup
There's no interest in anything regulatory from the Senate and POTUS beyond
symbolic hearings and memos.

------
superflit
They lie

