Crushing on the OpenCraft Philosophy

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Howdy - I randomly sent an awkward email the other day which Xavier thought would be cool to share with everyone. So I am:

Hi,

I’m sorry for the totally random and out of left-field weird fanboy email, but I really felt the need to send this. Please feel free to pass this on to your PR people (or the trash); I’m sure you’re both pretty busy.

My name’s Josh Berman, I’m originally from New York, and now live in Israel. Currently, I’m a software developer, but originally trained to be a Rabbi.

I’m someone who always strives for excellence, with various degrees of success, in every aspect of my life; my professional, my personal/familial, as well as communal and religious. Over the last 8 years since I joined the tech world, I’ve worked at 2 startups through various stages, in various tech-roles (intern, dev, team lead, pre-sales engineer, devops). I’ve always found, and been told, both as a manager and an employee, that excellence in one area requires untenable sacrifice in another.

Where I could, I’ve tried to push back on the concept, and have had some success, but a lot of failure.

I stumbled across your handbook today, and could not stop reading it. It reverberated strongly; and so eloquently expressed many principles I believe in. I hope it’s ok if the next time I’m in a managerial position and/or found my own company, I straight-up copy a lot of what you wrote.

It goes without saying that your core mission brings a huge amount of value to the world, and is incredible. But I also would like to say I’m inspired not just by what you do, but how you’re doing it.

Thanks for setting this example.

That’s it - creepy stalker-time over. :-)

Thanks for your time,

- Josh Berman

I meant every word of it - its really inspiring to see what you’ve built. You should all be proud.

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@joshb Thank you for writing in. Seeing encouragement like this is always heartwarming. :slight_smile:

By the way, we’re currently taking applicants. If our job posting looks like it fits for your case, consider filling out the form here! If you end up on the core team, not only will you be able to experience this philosophy first-hand, you’ll also get to help iteratively improve it.

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And because our handbook is CC-SA, you totally can :slight_smile:

There’s pros and cons to our approach, but for flexibility and freedom and respect, I’ve never worked anywhere that does it better. It does mean we each wear a lot of hats, and that’s challenging and often feels impossible to do well. And time will tell whether this scales as the company grows…

Thank you so much for writing in! Made me smile.

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Thanks! I’m not really looking to make a switch now, but down the line… who knows??? :smiley:

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I hear; I saw your thread about hiring.

As for the impossible to do well - I think anyone, and any company, which strives for excellence in many areas, will always fall short of expectations in some. But when the whole picture is view holistically, hitting 80% in a lot of areas > 100% in one…

Best of luck!

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@josh Thanks again for sending this :) And for forwarding it here!

Best wishes to you too.

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@joshb Thanks for the nice words! Made me smile as well :slight_smile: