If you’re part of Helius, we’ve deemed you to be ambitious, intelligent, and exceptional. While that’s necessary to work here, it’s not sufficient. Changing reality for the better is no easy task and requires hard work, creativity, and relentlessness. Here’s how we’ll get there.
The Mission
Helius’ mission is to increase the economic potential of the world’s developers. And we will do this with crypto.
Our Operating Principles
- Faster: this is the main principle behind everything we do. Speed is always the default behind every decision and every act. Everything can be done faster: API calls, customer support, meetings, calls, sales cycles, and even how you type. Yes, I am dead serious about your typing speed. Do not leave anything for tomorrow that you can do in this second.
- Make Magic: as Travis Kalanick says, there are four dimension of magic: give people their time back, bring calm to their lives, help them save money, or help them get more for their money. Bring joy to the developer, focus on the details. Life is too short for boring, forgettable experiences. Aim higher.
- Crisp Communication: a company is a set of people on a mission to change reality for the better. Changing reality is hard and no one person can do it. We must multiply our collective potential into a single unit. That can only happen with brilliant coordination, which starts with communication. Maximize context per sentence, add TL;DRs, don’t use fluff words (”I guess we could” will be replaced with “I will finish this by X pm on Monday”), remove unnecessary words. Default to being direct over superficial politeness. No typos.
- Take Action: do not psyops yourself and do not overthink. We are not theoretical physicists, we are builders. We don’t get feedback from 50 years of peer academic reviews, we get feedback from our customers. Ship something, get it out, get feedback. Take action. Replace all “I can/could/should” with “I will”.
- Win: people love to deny this, but life is competition. No one likes losing. Do you? You either admit this and aim to win every time or lie to yourself for superficial comfort. Not to be confused with 0-sum thinking, always aim for win-win situations. We won’t always win, but we will always put up a fight.
- Optimism: if you don’t believe that the future can look better than the past, you should not be here. No cynic ever changed the world.
Our Expectations
These are the traits that we evaluate ourselves on every day and every quarter. You will constantly measure yourself and your peers against these traits.
- Ownership: are you a passenger or are you a driver? Did it matter you showed up today? Are you proactive? If not, you are not an owner. Do not wait for things to come to you, take ownership and make them happen. We don’t care about your name or title, we care about effort and results.
- Execution: anyone can come up with ideas. We are not bureaucrats, we are builders. “Good enough” is the root of all evil, this is not a dollar store. Before asking your peers for feedback, first ask yourself: “am I excited about what I built? Is this a 10/10?” — if your answer is full of excuses, try again.
- Communication: poor communication in an organization is akin to a blood clot in the human body. If the body can’t communicate, it falls sick to disease and dies. If the company can’t communicate, it falls sick to stagnation and dies. If you don’t value communication, then you don’t value the mission. Listen more than you talk. Be clear, succinct, and direct. And always sweat the small stuff. If your English needs work, work on it.
Helius Writing Guide