A company's culture is how people in it behave when no one is looking and no one is telling them what to do.
- Paraphrased from Ben Horowitz
We form our own opinions, we don't let our starting point be conformity. We challenge what others say, but if a decision has to be made, we disagree and commit. We will make mistakes, we need to learn from them, and we do not blame one another for mistakes.
We don't expect there is always someone to tell us what to do or check that what we've done is correct; we have the ability to make decisions, and we trust each other to make reasonable decisions. It isn't like someone else figures all the details and we just execute; we're involved in figuring out what needs to be done. Being the owner means it will be delivered well, whether we execute it ourselves or not. Every person is in charge of what they do, and everyone else is there to help them achieve it. We take initiative. We keep pushing forward and make sure we're making progress. We create things we are proud of having created, things of high quality. Being structured, organized, and having priorities, help us take ownership.
We believe knowing things even if they are bad is better than not knowing them; knowing things earlier allows us to act better and faster. We trust each other with information, we trust it won't be misused or used against one another. Over-communication is better than under-communication; we don't assume that others know. We do not wait till the last moment to tell others about anything important; we raise anything of importance early.
We constantly build, follow, and revise processes that help us not miss anything, and help us analyze what needs to change when something new comes up or something goes wrong. We codify our lessons learned, and make sure we do not make the same mistake twice.
We understand that humans forget, or might not always be available, and therefore do not depend on tacit knowledge for important matters, rather, we turn our knowledge explicit. We leave clear traces of our decisions that allow our future selves to understand why decisions were made. We understand that over-documenting is a burden, so we attempt to maintain a balance.
We avoid walking in the dark, we figure what needs to be tracked and track it. We use the data to help us make decisions, but we are sensible; sometimes the data can mislead. We always make the data accessible and possible to interpret in the future.
We hire the best, and develop them to become world-class. We help each other deliver our development goals, and we utilize the company to that aim. We care about holistic development, not just professional; we encourage each other to explore new things. We're proud to contribute to the community.
We want to be able to sleep well at night. We do the right thing morally, and do not measure success purely financially.
While there will be days where we're overworked, we recognize that fun has to be a part of work. We care about being a happy team, and having a good work environment. We support each other's multi-faceted life and recognize everyone has different needs, we embrace diversity. We consider each other's emotions.