The Other Company

Appendix A. The fine print, written large.

Principles

A1. Mission

To build useful technology, turn meaningful ideas into reality, and contribute to a better technology ecosystem.

A2. Vision

An independent technology company known for useful products, hard problems solved, new possibilities explored and real contributions to the wider technology community. Defined by the quality of the work, not one product or trend.

A3. Why we exist

Useful ideas often go unexplored. Prototypes never become products. Companies get so focused on output that they stop contributing to the communities they depend on.

We want research to become engineering, engineering to become products, products to become sustainable businesses, and the lessons along the way to help other people.

A4. Responsibilities

To customers & partners

  • Understand the problem before proposing a solution
  • Be honest about scope, cost, constraints and risk
  • Protect confidential information
  • Build maintainable, documented, tested systems
  • Avoid complexity nobody needs
  • Report setbacks as clearly as progress

To the people who work here

  • Grow across disciplines
  • Own meaningful work
  • Take part in technical and product decisions
  • Contribute to open source during working hours
  • Get credit for meaningful contributions
  • Challenge ideas, respectfully

To the community

  • Improve existing projects instead of duplicating them
  • Publish useful findings
  • Respect licences and attribution
  • Support maintainers
  • Treat security, accessibility and docs as engineering

To the work

  • Test before releasing
  • Document important decisions
  • Consider security and privacy throughout
  • Maintain what we choose to support
  • Acknowledge uncertainty
  • Learn from mistakes

A5. How we talk about ourselves

  1. Be clear about what we do
  2. Ambition without exaggeration
  3. Real work, no invented achievements
  4. Honest about our stage
  5. No invented customers, partners, investors, metrics or testimonials
  6. Credit collaborators and open-source communities
  7. Separate what we can do now from what we plan

A6. Why “Other”?

The name is about staying independent in how we think and what we build. We don’t want to be defined by one product, one technology or one industry.

Not everything needs to fit into one category. It needs to be worth building.