What we believe
Our beliefs should affect what we choose to do, how we treat people, and what we are willing to call a good result. These are the commitments that connect the technical work to the company we want to build.
Start with the people who know the work
A person can recognize a good result without yet being able to describe every rule behind it. Working through examples together makes that judgment available: what they notice, what they reject, and what changes their mind.
We should leave that person with more agency. They should be able to inspect the system, correct it, and understand when it needs help. Turning an expert into a passive recipient of an automated answer would miss the opportunity.
Value has a recipient
An improvement needs to mean something to the person at the end of it. Faster processing may help them. So may a better explanation, more reliable service, or time for the part of the work that requires care.
Efficiency is useful when we can say what it makes possible. A measure that improves while the customer’s experience gets worse is telling us too little. The question starts with what somebody gains and what they might lose.
Judgment should be open to examination
We write down standards, constraints, examples, and reasons so that other people and tools can use them. That also makes the judgment easier to question and improve.
Taste as Infrastructure develops this idea. The aim is to carry a particular standard into the work while preserving the ability to revise it. A confident AI answer still needs to survive comparison with the source and the actual task.
Making something useful creates a chance to learn
A small working version can bring a vague disagreement into focus. Someone can try it, show where it fails, and change our understanding of what is needed.
We distinguish what has been built from what has been tried and what has helped. A demonstration gives us a next question. Repeated use gives us better grounds for deciding whether to invest, simplify, hand over, or stop.
Contribution includes helping another person contribute
A correction, a decision, a clearer example, and time spent teaching can all move the work forward. So can removing a barrier that the person doing the work cannot remove alone.
Availability is only a beginning. An open repository needs to be understandable; a new colleague needs a way in. The person joining also needs to engage, try, and make their difficulties specific. Collaboration Is Contribution holds both sides of that responsibility together.
Process must justify the attention it takes
A meeting should help people understand something or make a decision. A review should catch a risk worth catching. A shared record should save somebody from assembling the same explanation again.
We should apply that test to our own preferred methods as carefully as anybody else’s. Building quickly, publishing updates, or using agents can become performances too. Their value depends on what happens because of them.
Some things deserve to exist without a business case
Useful paid work gives a company a livelihood. It can also create room for writing, art, experiments, jokes, and generous things made with care.
We want to preserve that room. A piece of writing should be worth reading on its own. An artwork should be allowed to matter beyond what it does for our reputation. Gift, Not Asset explains why we care about protecting that distinction.