Sure: I cant think any of the above would say "yeah cool make a LinkedIn competitor part time"

(I worked at Google 2016-2023. Open source and video games were approved, anything else wasn't even worth the trouble of asking. i.e. it was well known to be "no" and a great signal to your manager you were unhappy)

We also have the benefit of _knowing they lied_: they were hired as a contractor to build it, and weren't at big tech.

By way of analogy: you're right, of course a German could hold up 3 fingers to order 3 beers. In practice, it is a tell.