Personal tenets
This is a personal list of tenets, which help me think through my priorities and help me make difficult decisions.
I don't expect others to have the same priorities or make the same decisions. These tenets are specifically aimed at my personal strengths and weaknesses.
I want to stress that these help make tough decisions. They are less useful for situations where the choice or tradeoff is clear.
Unless you know better, favour...
People over _
Everything we do stems from people and is meant for people. Their needs take precedence. Favour choices that empower, enable or elevate people over most other choices.
Transparency over clarity
If others know about your challenges, they can help you overcome them. Favour communication choices that allow others to know what is going on over those that try to reduce noise.
Momentum over correctness
It is more important to keep moving than to guarantee correctness at every step. Favour the choice that builds more momentum.
Learning over short-term success
Sustainable success requires lessons to be learned and experience to be built up. This is more important than continual short-term success. Favour the choice that enables you to gather more knowledge.
Feedback over intuition
You can't build a successful business without exposing yourself to customer feedback. Favour the choice that gives more exposure to that feedback.
Iteration over polish
Building the right thing in the long term requires iterating on product decisions. Favour the choice that allows you to try something new with the product over polishing an existing feature.
Delivery over control
We can't scale by trying to do everything ourselves. Favour the choice that maximises delivery over the one that maximises your ability to control details.