“This is not a pitch deck. It is a magnet.”
The Spirit
These are the freestanding beliefs that define how we build. If you want the macro story, visit our vision. If you want to know what it feels like to be in the trenches, keep scrolling.
Attracts
People who want to know who we really are before they apply
Repels
People who just want a job description
“Everything we build starts and ends with their outcome.”
The Spirit
We exist to make our customers measurably better. Sometimes that means building a better solution and delivering it directly. Sometimes it means transferring domain-specific knowledge so our customer can do it themselves. Both paths are equally valuable — what matters is that the customer wins. Bezos put it plainly in the original 1997 shareholder letter.
Attracts
You instinctively ask “what does the customer actually need?” before “what’s the technically elegant solution?” You’ve stayed late not because someone told you to, but because the client’s outcome wasn’t right yet.
Repels
You optimize for your own craft over the customer’s result. You’d rather build something impressive than something useful.
“We admire the people we serve.”
The Spirit
Operating company leaders and managers navigate challenges infinitely more complex than ours. Our domain is relatively narrow — we need mastery of AI, data, and delivery. Their mastery is bringing joy to their customers, who can ask for anything. We approach every engagement with genuine respect for how hard their job is.
Attracts
You’ve worked alongside operators and you respect what they carry. You see your role as making their superhero job a little easier, not telling them how to do it.
Repels
You look down on “non-technical” leaders. You think your expertise makes you the smartest person in the room.
“The transformation isn’t coming; it’s here.”
The Spirit
We don’t debate the “if” or “when” of AI. We are monomaniacal about its power to create operating leverage today. We don’t just use these tools; we inhabit them. Karpathy called December 2025 a phase shift in software engineering.
Attracts
You’ve already built something real with AI — an agent, an automation, an eval loop. You’re looking for a team that matches your intensity.
Repels
You’re “AI curious” but haven’t gone deep. You think the hype will pass.
“In the details, closing the abstraction gap.”
The Spirit
Paul Graham named the thing founders already knew: the best companies are run by people who stay in the details across every level, not by managers who treat each subtree as a black box. We operate in founder mode twice. First, as the founders of the AI layer inside each client’s business — in the weeds across every function. Second, as the bridge that brings their leaders back to founder mode by closing the abstraction gap between what’s actually happening and what they have time to see. Read the essay that started the movement.
Attracts
You dive into the details others delegate. You synthesize complexity into decisions, not dashboards. You’ve built something from scratch inside another organization and treated it like it was yours.
Repels
You manage through abstraction layers and think staying out of the weeds is a sign of seniority. You’d rather delegate understanding than build it yourself.
“Nothing worth learning is reserved for other people.”
The Spirit
High agency is the daily belief that hard things are learnable and no domain is off-limits just because it’s complex or unfamiliar. You don’t wait for permission, credentials, or someone to open the door. You find the unlock. This is the micro-disposition that drives what you do every day: teach yourself the hard thing, create your own opportunity, and never accept that something “isn’t for you.” Read the essay that defines the concept.
Attracts
Self-taught builders. People who automated their own job before anyone asked. People who learned to code because they had a problem, not because they had a degree. People who say “I’ll figure it out” and mean it.
Repels
People who wait for training programs. People who believe certain skills require formal credentials. People who see hard problems and think “that’s for the engineers” or “that’s above my pay grade.”
“Credit belongs to the one actually in the arena.”
The Spirit
Teddy Roosevelt said it in 1910 and it still holds: it is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena — who strives, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. We build alongside people willing to be marred by dust and sweat and blood for a worthy cause. Critics from the cheap seats do not get to set the terms. Read the full passage from the Sorbonne speech.
Attracts
You have shipped real things, been wrong in public, and shipped again. You draw energy from the work itself, not from applause or the absence of it. Critics who have never built anything do not slow you down.
Repels
You guard your reputation by staying on the sidelines. You need consensus or certainty before you move. You weight opinions from people who have never been in the arena themselves.
“Get rid of passengers and talkers. Reguide thrashers. Invest in killers.”
The Spirit
The best operators have an addiction to seeking out sources of pain and blowing them up. They do not route around the prickly stuff — they run at it. Given the freedom to do this, most people freeze. A few obsess over it, and those are the ones you build around. Credit for the frame: Tanay Tandon (Commure) and Alfred Lin (Sequoia).
Employee Types
talker
clued-in, leans out
killer
clued-in, leans in
passenger
clueless, leans out
thrasher
clueless, leans in
Attracts
You hunt for the thorniest problem in the room and go straight at it. You have owned the existential-dread project nobody else would touch. You get uncomfortable when a week goes by without breaking something hard.
Repels
You busy yourself with strategic-looking work that never touches the real pain. You wait for someone to point the missile before you fire. You run at motion, not at signal.
“Missionaries, not mercenaries.”
The Spirit
Founder Mode gives you freedom. This is the counterbalance. We debate passionately — the best idea should always win, regardless of who said it. But once we commit, we commit. No sandbagging, no “I told you so” if it doesn’t work. We are missionaries building toward a shared mission, not mercenaries optimizing for our own thing. That’s how you get the innovation of founders with the scalability of a team. Read the shareholder letter that made this famous.
Attracts
You argue for your position with data and conviction — then execute the team’s decision like it was your own. You’ve disagreed with your boss and said so directly. You’ve also committed to something you didn’t agree with and gave it everything.
Repels
You go along to get along. Or worse: you agree in the room and undermine outside it. You treat every decision as a hill to die on, or you never push back at all.
“We don’t wait for perfect. We manifest it.”
The Spirit
We are early, and the tools are raw. We don’t sit back and wait for a vendor to ship the perfect workflow. If it doesn’t exist, we build it. We are the creators of our own infrastructure.
Attracts
You thrive in ambiguity. You’ve shipped with incomplete tools before and iterated your way to something great.
Repels
You need a polished “v1.0” before you start building. You wait for someone else to figure it out first.
“Efficiency over UI.”
The Spirit
If a process can’t be run from a terminal, it doesn’t exist. We prioritize repeatable logic and automation over pretty interfaces. We live in the terminal because that’s where velocity happens — and agents are godlike.
Attracts
Your default artifact is a repo, a runbook, or a script. You pair with AI agents in the terminal to move faster.
Repels
The command line is a chore rather than a tool. You need a GUI to feel productive.
“Personal productivity is a technical challenge.”
The Spirit
We treat our own time as the most valuable resource. We expect you to innovate on your own “HumanOS” — your tools, your environment, your automations. We work sharper, not just harder.
Attracts
You obsess over your own workflow. You automate the mundane. You treat personal productivity as an engineering problem.
Repels
You think “hustle” is a substitute for an optimized workflow. You rely on brute force over systems thinking.
“We get it right because it matters — the resulting moat is a bonus.”
The Spirit
Operating within advanced IT security requirements is something we take seriously because it’s the right thing to do for our clients. Most AI teams can’t get past the first governance review. We’ve built the muscle to operate within enterprise-grade security, data privacy, and compliance protocols — not to create a competitive advantage, but because getting this right is critical. That it also results in a moat? We’ll take it.
Attracts
You’ve navigated enterprise IT governance before and you get why it matters. You appreciate that the ability to operate within serious security requirements is rare — and that scarcity creates a real moat for teams willing to do the work.
Repels
You think security is “someone else’s problem” or an obstacle to be circumvented.
“Collaboration over Conflict.”
The Spirit
We don’t fight IT teams; we empower them. We position IT as key contributors to progress. By partnering collaboratively, we unlock the access and engagement needed to move at sprint velocity.
Attracts
You instinctively build bridges with stakeholders. You know that trust is the fastest path to access.
Repels
Your default mode is adversarial. You see IT as a blocker rather than an ally.