Company Principles

An organization is driven by its people and culture. What

follows are the principles of HashiCorp, which together
describe the foundational characteristics of our company.
The principles provide a rubric by which we can make
decisions and through a shared understanding we can act
collectively in a consistent manner.
 Integrity is the deepest and most core principle of HashiCorp,
encompassing moral, intellectual, personal, and corporate
integrity. Integrity requires a consistency of our thoughts, words,
and actions and a dedication to the truth.

Integrity builds trust, upon which the strongest relationships are

built. When we trust others, we are more willing to be open and
engage. We must foster relationships internally to create a friendly,
productive, and positive environment and externally with our
users, partners, and customers to drive the adoption of our tools
and products.

When we speak of moral integrity, we are applying the golden

rule to treat others as you would like to be treated. Intellectual
integrity demands that we acknowledge reality and that our words
and actions are consistent with our understanding. Personal and
corporate integrity means that we must demand this standard of
every person as well as the collective.

As our core principle there can be no exemptions or compromises.

There is no employee, user, partner, or customer that can be
excused or allow us to compromise our own integrity.

Integrity
Long after we forget the details of an interaction, we remember
how we felt. This extends to our impressions of people, websites,
tools, and products. Producing beautiful work ensures a positive
association, and kindness to people does the same. These
associations change the propensity for future interactions, since
nobody wants to feel bad (or work with an asshole).

Kindness should be extended at every opportunity, to our peers,

users, partners, and customers. An internal environment that is
friendly, kind, and forgiving of mistakes is positive and productive.
Kindness externally builds our social capital, reputation, and makes
our customers want to engage with us in the future.

In the face of our own personal frustration, it is often difficult to

remember that our actions will be received by another thoughtful,
emotional human being. We should assume the best in people,
communicate kindly, and understand that the intention of
another’s actions are usually to be helpful in return. In some cases,
we may be the recipients of unkindness. We always choose to
respond with kindness, in the hope that we can move towards a
better communication environment. If this isn’t possible, you may
choose to exit the conversation. We can’t change the unkindness of

Kindness
others, but we can preserve the kindness of ourselves.
 HashiCorp will always be focused on innovating and pushing
the boundaries in an attempt to deeply impact the status quo.
However, forward progress requires a strong grounding in
reality. For us to effectively change the status quo, we must
understand and accept it however undesirable it may be. It is these
practical considerations rather than the theoretical that demand
pragmatism. Pragmatism is one of the few traits that is shared with
the Tao of HashiCorp, and that is because it should impact every
layer of our thinking.

Pragmatism
Humility starts with acknowledging that our knowledge is imperfect
and incomplete, but not fixed. We can continue to learn and grow
but this is an active process that we must choose to engage in. This
growth comes from constantly seeking feedback, learning, and
adapting based on new understanding. In this context, we must
view mistakes as learning opportunities in an active process of
reflection and analysis.

We must avoid overconfidence in our knowledge, but also in the

value that we deliver to the company as individuals and to our
customers as an organization. Through the same active process
of learning, reflecting, and adapting, we must increase the
effectiveness of our execution and challenge ourselves to solve

Humility
new problems.
 Every action we take moves us in some direction. Vision
is a point much farther than a single action can take us. Having
a vision allows us to judge if an action moves us closer or
further from our vision. Without vision, each action big or small
is no better than a random walk in the hope that we end up
somewhere we’d like to be. By having a vision, we try to move in
some direction, rather than moving in no singular direction at all.
Vision requires you to reflect on the big picture; to understand the
greater goal behind the smaller actions.

An organization must be cohesive in its shared, common vision.

Individuals may have conflicting vision which can be uncomfortable
but with thoughtful conversation vision can evolve over time. Here
we depend on our other principles: kindness in disagreement,
humility to accept we may be wrong, pragmatism to accept new
realities, cohesion in our execution, and reflection to adapt
our views. Regardless of these disagreements, as members of
an organization we must choose to stand behind the greater
common goal.

Vision
The execution of an idea matters much more than the idea itself.
This means that the best idea poorly executed is no better than a
mediocre idea well executed. Action should always be preferred
to inaction and uncertainty around the best idea must not prevent
execution. Organizationally we should strive towards single
decision makers who promote group discussion and buy in but act
without requiring consensus.

The best execution must be both effective and efficient, which we

can think of direction and velocity. Effective execution depends on
going the right direction, meaning there is an alignment with vision
and strategic goals with the highest priority work being done first.
Without effective execution, work may get done without advancing
towards the end goal.

Efficient execution measures our velocity and using minimal

resources through leverage. It is important to take a long term
view when measuring velocity, as it allows costs to be amortized.
Automating or eliminating tasks may reduce short term efficiency
but increase long run productivity. Doing a task well once pays

Execution
dividends to doing it many times. Measure twice, cut once.
 For the organization to execute well, it is necessary that all levels of
individuals execute well. However, an individual cannot efficiently
execute autonomously without the context of the broader strategic
goals. This demands a cohesion at every level of the company
through frequent and detailed communication of goals and
strategy. The goal of this communication is to ensure a shared
understanding not merely to occur, meaning we should be concise
without being terse.

Communication should extend from top-down to provide

the strategic context necessary and bottom-up to provide
feedback. This enables every individual to prioritize their work
and execute efficiently while feedback allows strategy to adapt
to changing conditions.

Communication
Beauty can exist in any job well done. A job well done requires
applying a sense of purpose and thoughtfulness, a consideration
for the consumer of our work. In this way, we must treat our work
as a craft to be practiced and perfected. This attention to detail
should be applied to everything we produce internally
and externally.

Beyond natural beauty, making something beautiful is

an active choice. It is a choice between thorough attention
to detail and a consideration of our peers, users, partners
and customers, or a cursory effort which is ultimately inefficient
in its execution. Making something beautiful requires more short
term effort, but increases the longevity and long term efficiency.

Beauty also takes shape in many forms: in the wording of a

document, the implementation of a technical feature, the syntax
of a configuration file, and much, much more. We should strive
for beauty in all forms of our work, and in doing so we should
understand that other members of our community may be more
skillful at producing a certain kind of beauty. There is no shame
in not achieving a perfect skill in all categories. Instead, we should
complement the strengths of each other and reach out to others

Beauty Works Better

for help. Together, we can create truly beautiful work.
 Reflection requires thoughtful and objective consideration and is
a recurring theme across our principles. At its simplest, we must
ask ourselves what could be done differently, allowing us to learn
from our successes and our mistakes. We must be humble and
use hindsight to recognize our mistakes so that we can learn,
pragmatic in accepting new realities even if we must admit to a
mistake, and reflective to adapt our goals and strategies.

This reflection is not limited to individuals, and can be applied

to the organizational structure and processes as well. When
process is implemented, it is to make repeated interactions more
efficient and to provide leverage. When the status quo prevents
progress we must reflect on how it can be adapted to better serve
its participants.

Reflection provides independent thinking and a healthy level

of skepticism with an ability to question our understanding,
execution, and adherence to our principles.

Reflection
If you have questions about our principles, please contact
Dave McJannet, our CEO; or our founders and co-CTOs,
Armon Dadgar and Mitchell Hashimoto.