---
title: "Truth is Toxic to Most Companies"
title_zh: "真相对多数公司有毒"
description: "Truth is counter-intuitively toxic to most companies."
author: David Jiang
url: https://dj.theory-a.com/writing/truth-is-toxic
date: 2024-11-05
modified: 2024-11-15
language: en, zh
tags: best
---

# Truth is Toxic to Most Companies · 真相对多数公司有毒

Engineers often pride themselves at their ability to ascertain truth or at least get [asymptotically closer](https://www.lesswrong.com/) to it.

However, in most companies, capital T Truth is toxic and the whole system is set up to avoid it.

Think about a company being acquired by a larger one. First order of business is to cut costs and increase margin.

This can't be done without knowing the Truth of which organizations are cost centers and which one are profit centers because all of them present themselves as critical profit centers. Even those that seem to obviously be cost centers often have high specific domain knowledge of critical systems and can use this as leverage to create symbiotic relationships with the rest of the company.

Now realize that every company is like this even without an explicit antagonistic relationship.

Powerful individuals end up in information bubbles not because they want to, but because of all the smart and motivated people around them acting in ways to maximize and preserve the existing status quo.

A naive engineer blindly believes in the Truth as an ultimate virtue and that all problems can be solved if it were delivered to someone with enough influence or formal authority.

But imagine an engineer presenting to the executives a manifesto of:

1. There is no way to reverse entropy
2. We're all going to die
3. Our core revenue streams will be disrupted by AI in 6 months and all our existing plans and motions are just performative ritual.

This of course is presented to the 6 executives leading the new AI initiatives at the company.

---

Truth is like radioactive ore. It requires an extreme level of expertise to extract net positive energy from it while dealing with its externalities.

The truth of "intricately carved silicon & linear algebra seems to create intelligence" can only be extracted profitably by certain experts.

In these companies truth is not a toxic asset because there's an entire system set up to process (most importantly, [convincing VCs of this for money](https://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice#:~:text=10.%C2%A0%20Growth%20solves%20%28nearly%29%20all%20problems.)). Even interns are encouraged to debate with senior executives.

However in most companies this is not the case. They are setup to digest a different kind of older truth, one that is no longer true.

In most companies, undiluted truth is toxic.

---

*Notice how this issue occurs recursively. Every company is pretending to be at the cutting edge of AI, pretending they can profit from truth when most are just trying to not die to truth. They are willing to  fork out margin-destroying costs in order to maintain relevance.*

## 中文版 (Chinese version)

工程师常常以能够探究真相或至少接近真相为荣。

然而，在大多数公司中，绝对真理（大写的“真理”）往往是有害的，整个系统通常被设计成去规避真理。

想象一个公司被更大的公司收购。首要任务就是削减成本、提高利润。

这无法避免地涉及到搞清楚哪些部门是成本中心，哪些是利润中心，因为所有部门都会自称为关键的利润中心。即便那些明显是成本中心的部门，往往也掌握着对关键系统的高度专有知识，可以利用这种“不可替代性”来与其他部门形成互利关系，强化其自身存在的正当性。

实际上，即使没有敌对关系，每个公司内部都是这样的。

位高权重的人最终会被信息泡沫所包围，不是因为他们有意为之，而是因为周围的聪明人会有意无意地维护现有的利益和现状。

一个天真的工程师会笃信真理，认为真理是最高的美德，并坚信只要能将真相传递给足够有影响力或权力的人，所有问题都能得到解决。

但试想一下，如果某位工程师向高管们展示了一份宣言，其中包括：

1. 熵不可逆转
1. 我们终将消亡
1. AI将在6个月内颠覆我们的核心收入来源，我们目前的所有计划和行动都是表面功夫。

而这宣言恰恰是向公司负责AI新项目的6位高管呈现的。

---

真理就像放射性矿石，需要极高的专业能力才能有效地从中提取正能量，同时处理其负面效应。

“精密刻制的硅片与线性代数似乎能创造智能”这一真理，只有特定专家才能从中有效获利。

在这些公司中，真理不是有害资产，因为有整个系统为此而设，特别是向风投展示其潜力以获得投资。甚至实习生都被鼓励与高级高管展开辩论。

然而，在大多数公司中情况并非如此。它们的架构更适合消化一种过时的真理，而非当下的真相。

在这些公司中，未经稀释的真理是有害的。

---

请注意，这种问题是递归的。每个公司都假装自己站在AI的最前沿，假装能从真理中获利，而实际上大多数公司只是努力在真理的威胁下不被淘汰。它们不惜承担巨大的利润侵蚀性成本以维持自己的相关性。

Discussion: [English](https://chatgpt.com/share/67215047-ac00-8004-a2c7-9a2087155348) [中文](https://chatgpt.com/share/672bc105-bf24-8004-9185-e9fc6497cb5d)