diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index d17930776f3d67..7d22bb0b7d0708 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -47,10 +47,10 @@ BUILD_DOWNLOAD_FLAGS ?= --download=all
 BUILD_INTL_FLAGS ?= --with-intl=small-icu
 BUILD_RELEASE_FLAGS ?= $(BUILD_DOWNLOAD_FLAGS) $(BUILD_INTL_FLAGS)
 
-# Default to verbose builds.
-# To do quiet/pretty builds, run `make V=` to set V to an empty string,
-# or set the V environment variable to an empty string.
-V ?= 1
+# Default to quiet builds.
+# To do verbose builds, run `make V=1` or set the V environment variable to a
+# non-empty string.
+V ?=
 
 # BUILDTYPE=Debug builds both release and debug builds. If you want to compile
 # just the debug build, run `make -C out BUILDTYPE=Debug` instead.