North stars

While our vision is the destination, our North stars are how we get there. They are the standards we hold ourselves to and the values we carry with us every day.

Integrity

Integrity is doing and saying what's right, not what's convenient.

We all have an inner sense of fairness, and we should use that as a guiding light in our decisions and interactions with partners and teammates. If something doesn't feel right, it's probably not, and we should speak up.

Sometimes, integrity takes courage, such as when we need to provide constructive feedback to someone we care about. This is good: it means there's a healthy tension between our sense of integrity and our sense of empathy.

A lack of integrity is a lack of trust. In the absence of trust, it's impossible to build shared vision or get anything done as a team.

Transparency

Transparency is systematically providing the context behind our choices.

Building a transparent company requires effort, empathy and respect. It requires trust that people will use the information we are providing in good faith, and that they will speak up if they disagree with us.

Transparency empowers others to make their own decisions and reach their own conclusions. It makes them feel like they're not just a means to an end, but rather the end in itself.

Effective distributed cultures are, first and foremost, transparent cultures.

Balance

Balance is the leitmotiv in everything we do.

First of all, we exhibit work-life balance, as it allows us to be our best selves, day after day. The alternative is to chase short-term wins at the expense of our health, our productivity and the quality of our work.

Secondly, we exhibit balance in how we approach problems. We think in systems and try to account for all factors at play. We take the time we need to make the right decision, but we don't stall—instead, we know when to disagree and commit.

Finally, we exhibit balance in the way we communicate. We don't let chance, circumstances or emotions put words in our mouths: instead, we choose our words in accordance with our values and our beliefs.

Commitment

Commitment is caring about the work we do and the people we do it for.

We show commitment when we ensure everyone and everything around us is enriched as a result of our presence. We look at the world with a critical, pragmatic eye and take initiative to improve the status quo.

We recognize that there will always be things to improve—things we wish we had done, things we wish we had done differently, and things we wish we had never done at all—and that's okay: commitment is about the journey, not the destination.

Our first and foremost commitment is to ourselves and our personal mastery. Everything else follows.

Community

We appreciate and respect that none of the things we do would be possible without the work of the community, and we constantly look for ways to give back.

Sometimes, this means releasing our work as open-source, so that the next person can get the same result with a fraction of the effort; other times, it means helping out someone in need, because we all have to start somewhere in our journey.

We think that life is too short for humankind to be solving the same problems over and over again, and we do whatever's in our power to accelerate this collective process of learning and growth.

We want to be the rising tide that lifts all boats.