Skip to main content

ChainAlign: Culture & Team Vision

Version: 1.0
Date: 12 October 2025

Why I'm Building This (And Why Our Culture Matters)​

I spent 15 years as a business consultant. I lived in PowerPoint. I had talented teams who did the actual coding, mostly SAP, while I created blueprints, architectures, and mockups. I worked with some exceptional developers and some terrible ones, and I learned that the difference between them was craft, not presentation skills.

I could read code logic (not syntax errors, but how things fit together). I asked good questions. I forced clear documentation. I ran frontend builds constantly to see what came out, then iterated. I used detailed task lists. I made sure everything was modular. I treated developers like partners, not resources.

Now, with AI-enabled coding, I can finally build myself what I used to craft with others' help. The experience is eerily similar, I do the exact same thing with my AI coding assistant that I did with human developers: clear requirements, constant testing, detailed questions, forcing good documentation, modular structure.

The difference? The average code quality is way higher. I can experiment 10x more. I have more control over the output.

This is why ChainAlign exists: Good decisions require the same discipline as good code, visibility into the logic, clear documentation of reasoning, structured iteration, and quality that comes from craft, not charisma.

This is why our culture matters: I've seen both worlds. I know what happens when PowerPoint people overshadow Excel people. When smooth talkers get promoted over builders. When leaders optimize for visibility over team success.

I'm building a company where:

  • The best idea wins, not the best-presented idea
  • Craft matters more than career climbing
  • We ship working solutions, not polished decks
  • Builders aren't overshadowed by talkers

If you're a builder who's been frustrated by presentation culture, this is your place.

Our Four Cultural Filters​

These aren't aspirations. These are how we actually operate and how we decide who joins our crew.

Filter 1: Builders Over Talkers​

What we value:

  • Working code, models, and analysis over polished presentations
  • Prototypes over strategy decks
  • "I built this, here's what I learned" over "I've been thinking about how we could..."
  • Demos beat discussions every time

Red flags we filter out:

  • People whose contribution is mostly in meetings, not artifacts
  • Beautiful slide decks with no underlying substance
  • Spending more time explaining work than doing work
  • Career "PMs" who've never built anything themselves

In practice:

  • If you can't show your work in a terminal, spreadsheet, prototype, or working demo, you probably haven't done it yet
  • We review the substance, not the packaging
  • Your GitHub commits / models / analyses speak louder than your meeting presence

Filter 2: Craft Over Career Climbing​

What we value:

  • Deep expertise in your domain, you know your Excel, SQL, Python, or market cold
  • Being grounded in reality, not abstracted from it
  • The best idea wins, regardless of who said it
  • Individual contributors can have as much influence as managers

Red flags we filter out:

  • People optimizing for title and visibility over impact
  • Leaders who throw their team under the bus to look good
  • "I'll manage the people who do the work" without having done the work themselves
  • PowerPoint fluency as a substitute for domain expertise

In practice:

  • We don't promote people away from what they're great at
  • Leadership means making your team better, not making yourself visible
  • You can be a senior IC with as much voice as a VP, it's about contribution, not title
  • We hire people who are great at their craft AND inherently kind and team-oriented

Filter 3: Team Success Over Self-Promotion​

What we value:

  • Leaders who celebrate their team's wins publicly and take the blame for failures
  • "We succeeded" not "I delivered"
  • Building people up, not standing on them
  • Making your reports more successful than you

Red flags we filter out:

  • Taking credit for team's work
  • Protecting yourself while exposing your team
  • "My people didn't execute" instead of "I didn't set them up for success"
  • Growing your empire instead of growing people

In practice:

  • If you're a leader and your team isn't learning and growing, you're not doing your job
  • We notice who gets the credit in your stories
  • Delegation without support is abandonment
  • The best leaders make themselves less critical over time by building capability around them

Filter 4: Optimistic Experimenters ("Let's Try" Over "That Won't Work")​

What we value:

  • Starting with "how might we?" not "we can't because..."
  • Optimistic realism: acknowledge constraints, then get creative
  • Reframing impossible problems into solvable ones
  • Controlled experiments over endless analysis
  • Moonshot thinking grounded in physics and reality

Red flags we filter out:

  • Default "no" people who kill ideas before exploration
  • "We tried that before and it failed" without examining what's different now
  • Risk-aversion masquerading as wisdom
  • Pessimists who find problems but never solutions

In practice:

  • We ask "what would need to be true?" instead of "that's impossible"
  • Small experiments beat long debates
  • You can disagree with an approach, but come with an alternative
  • "I don't know, let's find out" is a completely valid answer
  • We embrace smart failures: make new mistakes (progress), but don't repeat old ones (broken learning)

What This Means in Practice​

Phase 0: Pre-Funding (Where We Are Now)​

The Reality:

  • No salaries, equity only
  • Small team, founder-led, fighter jet mode
  • High risk, high intensity, high potential
  • Expected timeline: [through Q1 2026, pending funding]

Who this works for:

  • People with financial runway who can afford the risk
  • Builders who want to shape something from the ground up
  • Those who trust through action, not paperwork

Who this doesn't work for:

  • If you need a formal contract to trust, this isn't the right phase for you (no judgment, it's about timing and personal situation)
  • If you need certainty and structure right now, come back when we're funded
  • If you can't afford the financial risk, please stay connected for post-funding opportunities

How equity works:

  • Pre-funding pool is divided equally based on commitment percentage
  • 100% time = 1.0 unit, 50% time = 0.5 units, 20% time = 0.2 units
  • Your equity = (your units ÷ total units) × (pre-funding pool %)
  • Pool closes when funding is agreed (term sheet stage)
  • Standard 4-year vesting, 1-year cliff from join date (This means you must be with the company for one full year to receive the first 25% of your equity)
  • Specific numbers get finalized with funding, but the model is transparent from day one

Decision-making structure:

  • I'm the founder, I have final say on team composition and strategic direction
  • But I work toward consensus and seek input from everyone
  • Co-founder status (strategic partnership beyond functional role) is earned through demonstrated ownership of our shared mission, not assigned by title
  • Equity ≠ automatic decision rights (though your voice always matters)

Phase 1: Post-Funding (0-30 People)​

This is where most of our cultural principles fully activate:

How we operate:

  • ChainAlign as our operating system: Once our product is ready for internal use, we use it for any decision affecting multiple teams. Not just dogfooding, it's our belief system. Good decisions need visible logic, documented reasoning, and structured thinking.

  • DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) with transparent process: Every significant decision has one person accountable. But their job isn't to decide in a vacuum, it's to gather input, listen to perspectives, and build alignment. We use transparent processes (eventually ChainAlign) to make the reasoning visible.

  • Freedom with responsibility: Unlimited time off. We don't count vacation days. We trust you to manage your energy, communicate clearly, and ensure your work is covered. In return, we expect full accountability. When a critical project is on the line, we expect you to roll up your sleeves and deliver exceptional results.

  • Performance = impact, not constant intensity: We don't expect 110% every day, that leads to burnout. We expect you to manage your energy for the long haul. But when it matters most, adequacy isn't enough.

How we communicate:

  • "Pull, don't push": We make information broadly accessible in central places (Notion, internal wiki). We only "push" essential updates. We trust you to pull what you need. If you can't find something, just ask.

  • Bad news travels fast: This is non-negotiable. Hiding problems doesn't make them smaller, it delays solutions and erodes trust. We celebrate the courage to raise red flags early. A shared problem is one we can solve together.

How we give feedback:

  • Continuous, not annual. We'll use tools to document feedback in real-time, but the real value comes from regular human conversations.
  • Fair, direct, and hierarchy-free. Feedback flows up, down, and across. Your title doesn't exempt you from receiving it or prevent you from giving it.
  • Direct without being cruel. Examples:
    • ✓ "This approach won't scale because X, here's an alternative"
    • ✗ "This is stupid, why would we do it this way?"
  • We give feedback to improve outcomes, not to judge people. If you can't separate the work from the person, we're not a fit.

How we reward:

  • Market-driven salary: Competitive pay based on role, skills, and location. We aim for at or above market average.
  • Shared success: Company performance bonuses when we hit goals + individual performance recognition for high-impact contributions.
  • Growth is a right, not a perk: Training, coaching, and learning opportunities are core to being on this crew, not incentives for select few.

Who we hire:

  • Culture fit first, then skill. We can teach technology. We can't teach kindness, fairness, or collaborative spirit.
  • Brilliant jerks need not apply. A brilliant individual who disrupts team harmony creates a net loss. We'll pass on exceptional talent if they don't align with our "Committed Crew" ethos.

Experiments We're Running​

These aren't set in stone, they're things we're testing:

Daily reflection practice:

  • Short notes capturing what you learned, what you're stuck on, what you're excited about
  • Goal: collective learning and surfacing patterns, not performance monitoring
  • We'll use AI to extract themes relevant for long-term org growth
  • If it becomes busywork or feels like surveillance, we kill it
  • Early crew members will help shape whether this adds value

ChainAlign for internal decisions:

  • Once the product is ready, we use it ourselves
  • Makes decisions auditable and reasoning visible
  • Prevents "charisma over logic" problem
  • Helps us improve the product through real usage

Our Success Scorecard​

We don't measure success by a single metric. We balance:

  • Customer Impact: Delighting a growing base of customers
  • Team Fulfillment: Creating an environment where people are genuinely happy and proud to contribute
  • Principled Operations: Acting with fairness, kindness, and mindfulness
  • Community Engagement: Being a positive force where we operate
  • Sustainable Growth: Strong financial returns for those who invested in our vision
  • Technical Excellence: Staying at the cutting edge to solve customers' most important problems

In Phase 0, survival and product-market fit dominate. As we grow, we work toward this balance.

Are You a Fit?​

You might be our person if:

  • You've been frustrated by presentation culture and want to build in a different environment
  • You're a builder who's been overshadowed by smooth talkers
  • You're an individual contributor who doesn't want to manage just to gain influence
  • You've worked for leaders who threw their teams under the bus, and you hated it
  • You're optimistic but grounded (moonshots need physics)
  • You're comfortable with ambiguity and risk
  • You trust through action, not paperwork
  • You value directness and can give/receive feedback without making it personal
  • You want to be part of something from the early days, with all the intensity and potential that brings

You're definitely NOT our person if:

  • Your best work is in slide decks, not artifacts
  • You're optimizing for title over impact
  • You need certainty and structure right now (timing matters, maybe later!)
  • You say "no" before exploring possibilities
  • You can't separate feedback on work from judgment of people
  • You need formal contracts to begin trusting
  • You're looking for work-life balance in early startup phase (it will come, but not yet)

Our Commitment to You​

Transparency from day one:

  • This document reflects what we actually believe and how we actually operate
  • No surprises, no hidden cultural debt
  • What you see is what you get

We're building this culture consciously:

  • This isn't laminated and stuck on a wall, we live it
  • Leaders are stewards of culture and will be held accountable for team health
  • We'll revisit these principles regularly: "Is this still true? Is this still serving us? How can we live this better?"

We'll evolve:

  • As we grow, we'll face new challenges and learn new things
  • Some of what's written here will need adjustment
  • We'll do that evolution transparently, together

Next Steps​

If this resonates with you:

Pre-Funding Phase:

  • Reach out to discuss whether there's a fit
  • We'll have honest conversations about the reality of joining now vs later
  • No formal commitments until we're both certain

Post-Funding Phase:

  • We'll have this on our careers page
  • Formal hiring process with culture fit as the primary screen
  • Clear onboarding into how we actually work

Questions? The best way to understand if you're a fit is to talk. Let's have a conversation about what you're looking for and whether ChainAlign could be that place.

This document reflects our thinking as of 12 October 2025. It will evolve, but the core filters won't. We're building a place where builders thrive, craft matters, teams come first, and we say "let's try" more than "that won't work."

If that sounds like somewhere you'd want to spend your time, let's talk.