Principles

Things I've come to believe about building, leading, and getting better at anything. I update this when something changes.

01 — People first, always

Everyone has their own arc, their own set of experiences, their own perspective. Every challenge, problem, and win eventually reduces to a challenge, problem, or win for people — it doesn't matter that the tool gets better, it matters that the tool helps people better. Deep empathy and a desire to see other humans for who they are is central and fundamental.

02 — Curiosity for its own sake

Learn wide and learn deep. The human experience is so vast and simultaneously so short for individuals. Curiosity is a rare trait that not only allows for the production of great outcomes, but is a great outcome in and of itself.

03 — Welcome being wrong

It is rare to ever be completely correct. It is rare to build the perfect product. It is impossible to know if your decision is the optimal one. Being comfortable with being wrong means that you can learn so much faster. This gets easier when you remove your ego from the equation.

04 — Process as a lever

How you do something (sometimes) matters more than the thing itself. Building in appropriate, resilient processes is how we build, train, or do anything better because it allows us to focus on the act itself.

05 — Discipline transfers

The ability to persist is itself a skill, and like any skill it strengthens with practice. Practice it often and across domains, because the discipline that compounds is the kind you've trained. It's what unlocks ability — capacity follows consistency.

06 — Whitespace

It is so easy to build more, buy more, fill everything in. Leaving room in a product, in a design, in a day is what makes the actual thing so much more valuable. We achieve this through deliberate intention.