Principles

I. Capability compounds. Everything else is decoration.

II. Institutions outlive founders, or they were never institutions.

III. Character precedes competence.

IV. Stewardship over ownership.

V. Truth before popularity.

VI. Complexity serves clarity, or it is waste.

VII. Design reflects philosophy. There is no neutral surface.

VIII. Knowledge requires discipline. There is no shortcut to understanding.

IX. The private root precedes the public act.

X. We prefer the second-order effect to the first.

XI. We take our timescales from architecture, not from software.

XII. We accept responsibility for outcomes we did not personally cause.

XIII. We say what is true, in the plainest available language, and no more.

XIV. We refuse hype in all its dialects.

XV. We regard restraint as a competitive advantage and treat it as one.

XVI. We invest in what compounds; we ignore what merely accelerates.

XVII. We are judged by the quality of the people we make, not the products we ship.

XVIII. We hold our failures at eye level and in daylight.

XIX. We build for people we will never meet.

XX. When a principle and an incentive disagree, the principle wins.