Values & Norms (SVE Slide)

Team Values:

• Build What Matters: Focus on structurally important problems at the intersection of technology, industrial capacity, and geopolitics
• Commercial Reality Over Intellectual Comfort: A good idea is only good if someone will pay for it within ~24 months
• Progressive Certainty: Narrow relentlessly; kill weak hypotheses quickly
• Long-Term Orientation: Optimize for durable impact and defensibility

Norms: Accountability

• Clear Ownership – Every workstream has a single directly responsible owner
• Revenue Test Discipline – If we cannot articulate buyer, budget, and path to revenue, we pivot
• Artifact-Driven Clarity – Force specificity through concrete outputs
• Bias Toward Action – Research must lead to decisions, not perpetual exploration

Norms: Communication

• Sharpen Language: Avoid vague narratives; define problem states precisely
• Surface Assumptions Explicitly: Separate known facts from hypotheses
• Intellectual Honesty: Challenge each other’s reasoning rigorously but constructively
• Synthesis > Information Dumping: Distill insights into decision-relevant conclusions

Norms: Decision Making

• Constraint-Driven Filtering: Software-first, clear buyer, macro tailwinds, <24-month revenue path
• Score Before Expanding: Evaluate ideas systematically before exploring adjacent spaces
• Default to Narrowing: Fewer ideas, deeper conviction
• Commit Decisively: Once criteria are met, move from analysis to building

Source: SVE application slide (TierZero_ValueAndNorms.pdf)