Honeycomb Values, 2018

This past week was a big one for us here at the hive–we completed our quarterly review/planning process, and while we were all together we reviewed our company values statements and made some adjustments. We’re quite small now, and as we grow we know that some of our values will require review and improvements to clarity in terms of intent and execution–so we expect to revisit these value statements repeatedly in the coming years.

We’re posting these publicly so that folks looking to join us will have further perspective of what it means to be a Honeycomber, and also to hold ourselves publicly-accountable. And although they’re seasoned with a little humor, we take these values seriously.

“We hire adults”

• Act with autonomy and ownership.
• Pay attention to your mind and body so you can give and get help.
• Participate fully in collaboration, coaching and management.
• If any group of us were together in a car on a long road trip, there would be no need for a dividing line in the back seat to keep one of us from hitting another.

“Everything is an experiment”

• Don’t get attached to outcomes, as that would prevent you from moving forward.
• Construct your experiments with rigor, conduct them with integrity, evaluate them with honesty.
• Disagree and commit.
• It’s all fun and games until you set the lab on fire.

“Feedback is a gift”

• Give feedback freely, give gently, give timely, but give.
• Assume good intent.
• We are a high-trust and high-transparency team.
• Gifts don’t make people cry.

“Fast and close to right is better than perfect”

• Take pride in your craft and ship relentlessly.
• Use your judgment. Ask forgiveness, not permission.
• “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”
• Code in production is worth two in canary.

“Do it with style”

• Our product should have a personality.
• Our employees should have personality.
• Be delightful.
• This one isn’t funny.