Principles

Vision

On me all this is strung like pearls on a thread.
Bhagavad Gita 7.7

With relentless focus on operational efficiency through automation, being the lowest cost provider, achieving volume through distribution, and disciplined capital allocation, we develop capabilities to provide higher value to our customers at a faster tempo compared to the next alternative.

Self

That which you see as
other than righteousness and unrighteousness,
other than all this cause and effect,
other than what has been and what is to be—tell me THAT.
Katha Upanishad

Love. Everything starts with love without it there is only anger and darkness.
Humility. Be humble and show respect to others and ourselves. Respect our level of knowledge. If someone else can teach us something, learn from them. Work with others in a non-zero-sum way seeking to grow the pool for everyone.
Skin in the Game. No one is accountable for the actions we take but ourselves. We are responsible for both the good and the bad. It is easy to take praise but harder to take blame. Finger-pointing doesn’t solve problems. If shit hits the fan, acknowledge failure, and pick up a mop.
Maslow. To be our best selves, we need to fulfill our Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. We develop every part of ourselves.
Lever. Every single person has 24 hours a day. Learn to manage it and lever it with technology. Technology and automation are friends, allowing us to achieve more with less.
Perceive. To know where the world is going is to take part in it by synthesizing knowledge, getting deep by challenging our thinking, applying it, and sharing our learning. To do this well, we dive deep into problems by biasing for action allowing us to internalize knowledge. We act by focusing on being less wrong as opposed to being more right.

Work

It is in action alone that you have a claim,
never at any time to the fruits of such action.
Never let the fruits of action be your motive;
never let your attachment be to inaction.
Bhagavad Gita

Customer First. A business exists to create the most value for the customer from their next alternate. So we start with the customer and work backwards. We understand the customer’s pain and figure out how we can use our capabilities to provide them the best value. By diving deep into providing value to our customers we will be able to reinvest the knowledge we gain into creating additional capabilities, repeating the cycle.
Hacker. Use fewer resources to accomplish more. Plenty creates lethargy. Lethargy leads to destruction from competition. Fewer resources forces survival and generates the scar tissue needed to weather pain and deliver results.
Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Create continuous improvement through high-tempo experimentation. If trail and error works for mother nature it will work for us. Failure is a means to learn, not something to be punished. Fail fast with small bets and learn from those failures to improve the odds of the big bets succeeding.
Think Long-Term. Build a long-term vision and work backward to achieve it. Don’t get distracted by short-termism and the whims of market forces. Build methodical structures that can evolve to the goal.
People, Ideas, Technology. In That Order. People are the foundation of everything we do. Work is a means to enable others. A garbageman picking up trash enables an artist to work on a masterpiece. Technology exists to enable People.
Quality. Flow is achieved when everyone performs their role, passing the baton to the next person. When each person performs their task well and the next person does not have to redo work we increase quality. By achieving quality we reduce costs and drive more value to the Customer.

Growth

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.
Lays of Ancient Rome, Thomas Babington Macaulay

Burn the Ships.
Alexander the Great

Customer. We build deep, long-term relationships that span years and hopefully decades. Trust and commitment to do good on their behalf are paramount. We figure out their pain points, deeply understand their needs, and help them be better so they can, in turn, do the same for their customers.
Team. We give our team autonomy to work and use their ingenuity and knowledge to help our customers. Our only constraint is they do so within the bounds of our Principles. By being principles-driven instead of process-driven, we can adapt to changing circumstances.
Insights. We build mental models of the world and markets to see how we can fulfill needs. We take market intelligence and customer’s needs to make small bets. These small bets allow us to test the water and gain knowledge. Once a bet is validated we expand with focus and force. This incrementalism allows us to continuously pathfind into new markets expanding our capabilities.
Capital. We grow our revenue by 20% every year with a focus on free cash flow as our profitability metric. Our conservative hurdle rate is 20% return on equity. We attempt to minimize the amount of debt we have and keep to a maximum of 20% of debt-to-equity. We reinvest 90% of our free cash flow back into growth.
Cloud. We focus exclusively on using the Cloud to achieve operational excellence and drive cost reduction. We implement our services repeatably to increase scale and customer value while reducing cycle time. Further, we build win-win partnerships and third-party channels to allow us to expand our reach and increase our market presence using our capabilities so our partners can focus on their capabilities.
Society. A business exists to advance humanity. Our societal goals are 1. modernize, automate, and improve infrastructure, 2. improve education, and 3. reduce world hunger.