The Manifesto
Preamble
We are the makers of products, the custodians of the experiences our products create.
Founders, leaders, product managers, designers, engineers, marketers. The responsibility of making belongs to everyone whose decisions shape what a customer encounters.
We now have the means to solve harder problems and serve people better than ever before. Ethics, trust, and consequence are not external to that craft — they sit inside every decision we make, intentional or not.
AI is also changing how we operate; how we communicate, make decisions, what we build, at what speed, and with what consequences. It is bringing disciplines closer together, creating real opportunities for makers to work with greater autonomy and leverage.
The value of distinct expertise and the different perspectives they bring does not diminish in this environment. The capacity that lets us move faster also means mistakes scale faster. When everyone can make, creating something truly special still requires people who are truly excellent at what they do.
The challenge for makers is choosing which capabilities to leverage, when and for what purpose.
These principles exist to provide grounding in a rapidly changing landscape, both what has shifted and what remains true.
Our purpose is to create products customers love, that deliver meaningful gains, shaped by human creativity and technology working together, at a speed matched to the world we now live in.
Values
Purpose over possibility
Everything may be possible, not everything is worth building.
WHAT IT'S NOT: “Everybody's a builder”. Shipping more because it's cheap, whether or not it's worth making.
Value realised over effort spent
Customers pay for outcomes, not for our craft.
WHAT IT'S NOT: Tokenmaxxing leaderboards. Features shipped but no extra value created. Vanity metrics dressed up as value. Mistaking activity for progress.
Learning loops over launch plans
Loops fueled by understanding compound quickly.
WHAT IT'S NOT: Shipping as the definition of done. Mistaking synthesis for understanding. Fixed plans in a shifting landscape.
Human accountability over full automation
You can delegate decisions; you cannot delegate accountability.
WHAT IT'S NOT: “The AI did it.” Consequential decisions without human oversight. Lay-offs dressed up as transformation.
Principles
Purpose over possibility
Understand the problem worth solving
The problem worth solving, when to solve it, and why, are the highest-leverage choices we can make.
Seek opportunity within new possibilities
Hold well-informed convictions on where your world is heading; actively seek the opportunity within new possibilities.
Build for durable advantage
Features alone no longer create moats. Durable advantage must be actively championed and consciously built in every decision.
Be more ambitious
Greater capability and capacity is an invitation to deliver on greater ambition.
Value realised over effort spent
Harness speed with clear intent
Speed is power if paired with clear direction — without it, every capability accelerates in its own direction.
Make context explicit
Good judgement requires clear intent — strategic direction, trade-offs, constraints — without this, what we optimise for will drift.
Measure what drives value
What we choose to measure shapes what gets built; the consequences should deliver value without distraction.
Match pace to readiness
Capability is accelerating faster than customers can consume it; what they are ready for is where value is won or lost.
Learning loops over launch plans
Make for adoption
Distribution, adoption, monetisation, retention don't come after making — they are now what making means.
Stay close to the people you serve
Proximity, trust, and genuine relationships with real people remain irreplaceable — and inherent to good judgement.
Build on real evidence
Faster building is only valuable if building understanding keeps pace, continuously testing signals against reality.
Re-orient continuously
The ability to re-read the landscape and adjust course is more valuable than the ability to execute a plan well.
Human accountability over full automation
Consequences matter
We have a responsibility to consider not just whether something can be built, but what impact it will have if we do.
Challenge by design
Complex problems demand diverse perspectives working through disagreement.
Match the standard to the stakes
The size and severity of our guardrails depend on the nature and scale of risk we take on — and whether it can be reversed.
Humans sign the work
Humans must remain answerable for the consequences, by design not by default.
Discussion
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