We're positive and constructive without being complacent. It's a company full of designers and critical thinkers, and we're fairly comfortable thinking critically in front of each other, but we don't take it personally and we take pains to boost each others' confidence.

No stock options, and no stock-option mentality: no vesting, no mysterious valuations, no weird tax traps, no distorted incentives, no eternally delayed IPO, no hush-hush private cash-outs for a select few. Our financials are transparent, our salaries are transparent, they pay me with money! Hooray!

We have a wealth of experiences and talents, and -- perhaps because we're all self-starters, accustomed to working in our own spaces and time-zones -- we tend to be confident and level-headed. We're also helpful and polite -- the support-driven culture applies inside as well as out.

They communicate clearly and thoroughly about where the company is and where they want it to be. They are ambitious but not impatient. And they explicitly, consciously, and carefully pursue the art of being good -- to their customers, their employees, and the world as well as to themselves.