Manifesto
What we stand for.
These are the principles we use to decide what to build, what not to build, and how. They're not aspirational. They're the floor.
Tenet 1: Tools should be useful for people.
The simplest test we know: does a person leave better off than they came? Not “did they get something for free.” Not “did they save time we didn't ask them to save.” Useful for them, in a way they would describe themselves. If we can't answer yes, we don't ship it.
Tenet 2: People over output.
A tool that helps one person do good work matters more than a tool that floods the world with work no one wanted. We're not in the volume business. We're in the help-someone-do-something-they-care-about business.
Tenet 3: Tools, not solutions.
A solution promises to take the work away. A tool gives you better hands. The first removes you from the loop; the second keeps you in it. We build the second kind because the first kind always ends with someone realizing the work still has to be done — and now they can't do it.
Tenet 4: Capability, not dependency.
A good tool leaves you more capable than it found you. A bad tool leaves you needing it. We're trying to build the first kind. If you stop using our products and find yourself less able than before, we failed.
Tenet 5: Use AI when it helps; don't pretend it's the work.
We use it inside our products. We're not coy about it. But the model is the saw, not the carpenter. The thing we sell is what a person can do with our tools — not what the tools can do without one.
Tenet 6: Language is one wall. There are others.
We started with language because it's the wall we hit hardest, and the one we know best. But the company isn't *about* translation. It's about removing walls between people and the things they could otherwise do. The next product might not look anything like the first one. That's fine. The principle stays.
Tenet 7: Community is the test.
A tool is only good if the people it's for say so. We build alongside the people who first asked for what we made — they tell us when something works, when it doesn't, and what to build next. We don't ship to abstractions. We ship to people we know.