# Personal Operating Manual
README.md
What I expect. How I show up. What inspires me.
For myself first—then for anyone I work with.
The questions I use to evaluate fit. Guardrails to stay true to myself.
Will I be surrounded by people who make me uncomfortable?
Scary smart
People who push themselves past "what's necessary" simply because they wanted to see the other side. People I'm inspired by. People I'll learn from. Scary is the important word: it should be uneasy to keep up with them.
Genuine
People who care not just about what they do, but how they do it. People who want to know the humans they work with, and want to be known in return. Honesty, kindness, authenticity—not as values on a wall, but as how they live.
Optimistic
Never toxic positivity—a deeply held belief in a better tomorrow. Honest about barriers, willing to do the work. I'm optimistic by nature, and I want to be somewhere the optimists outnumber the pessimists.
Expect more
Push me. Challenge me. Hold me accountable. A culture of excellence, where we're all here to do our best work. People excited by the idea that today is the worst we'll ever be at what we do.
Will I have the autonomy to build something meaningful?
Chart my own path
Choose my own adventure, with guideposts not hard walls. A place that treats people like adults who can make the right decisions. Defaults, not rules. Capabilities, not titles.
See my impact
I put in my all. I expect to see the impact—and be recognized when I achieve something extraordinary.
Lift others
I want to help others grow—mentor, coach, teach. Design programs or work 1:1. A place where we're all here to learn, and I get to help make that happen.
Room to grow
Keep learning. There will be phases of mastery, but there must be phases of stretch too. Stagnation is not an option.
Can I win even when I lose?
Winning in failure
A place that knows failure is a lesson, not something to avoid. Where I can fail fast and fail forward. Antifragile, not fragile.
Winning in loss
Even if the bet loses—the project, the job, the company—I've gained something real. Growth, learning, relationships, skills. A place where everyone wins, even in loss.
Worth the hard days
A place I believe in. Where what we're building is worth sticking through the storms for.
How I show up at my best. Not targets—observations. Learned through reflection and feedback.
Trust first
I share openly. I trust you can and will do what you say. But fair warning: burn my trust and it's a long road back.
Expect your best
I want people to see everything they're capable of. My expectations are high—I hold what I know you can do, and I'll actively help you get there.
Best ideas win
Idea labs are fun—and where the best results come from. So expect me to argue, push, prod, and question. I expect the same from you. This is how we get to the best answers.
Honest, not brutal
I won't lie, but I might say nothing. I will tell you what I think, clearly and kindly. I expect the same from you.
Don't box me in
Defaults are powerful; rules are suffocating. Put a hard line in front of me and expect me to interrogate it. The best path forward often means breaking the rules.
Optimistic by nature
I believe in a better tomorrow and I'll work to make it happen. Always looking for the silver lining—but never ignoring the storm clouds.
Pragmatic by practice
The world is grey and complex. I will find a path forward, even if it's not the one I wanted. Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough.
Clear is kind
Direct, concise, precise. But not cold—pith and context matter.
Words that shaped how I think. What to seek. How to be. What to remember.
What to seek
What to look for. Where to spend time and energy.
Work on something uncomfortably exciting.
— Larry PageChoose things that will make you smarter in 10 or 20 years.
— Warren BuffettLook for smart people and hard problems.
— Paul GrahamNot everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
— James Arthur BaldwinHow to be
Guardrails on how to show up, how to think, and how to act.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.
— AristotleWe judge others by their behavior. We judge ourselves by our intentions.
— Ian PercyIt is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
— AristotleYou must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.
— Richard M. NixonBe soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.
— Kurt VonnegutTo remember about the world
Essential reminders. Less directed, always grounding.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
— Edmund BurkeIt is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.
— Aung San Suu Kyi— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.