Our Principles: Respect
By Clara Vu, co-founder and VP Engineering, Veo Robotics
This is one of three pieces on Veo’s principles, each written by one of the company’s founders. Although each of these posts are by a different founder and about a different principle, they are equally crucial to the company and build on each other.
Whenever I try to describe the culture we are working to create at Veo, the word I keep coming back to is “respect.” First, the basics: Be polite. Ask nicely. Say “please” and “thank you.” We’re all grown-ups working together toward a common goal, and we should treat each other as such.
Respect for our roles
We all have different roles within the company (electrical engineering, product management, finance, recruiting, software engineering, sales, QA, raising capital, cat-herding…). Each role is critical to our success or failure. Each can make great contributions if done well and cause great harm if done poorly.
Different jobs require different skill sets, mindsets, and training. Thinking that some jobs are more important than others is a great way to ensure that some are done poorly, to the detriment of all the others.
Management is a role like any other. Being a leader/manager/director/VP/CEO means that your job includes growing, directing, and coordinating other people’s work. It does not mean that you are any less obligated to be respectful. In fact, you should be more respectful because you have an obligation to set a good example, and because others may be less empowered to call you out on bad behavior.
Respect for our differences
We are in pursuit of IDIC. We count among ourselves, our families, our friends, and our respected coworkers people of many gender identities, races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, countries of origin, etc. Our differences also go beyond these attributes that are traditionally treated as “diversity” markers—they include where we grew up, what our families are like, where we went to school, and the kinds of jobs we’ve had. We firmly believe that none of these attributes bestow any inherent superiority or inferiority, or have any impact on a person’s ability to be a valuable member of our team.
These differences can, at first, make it tricky to work together—the lack of a common worldview can create friction and make us uncomfortable. But if we intentionally work through this, we gain a tremendous advantage: access to a much wider set of experiences, intuitions, and ideas.
We want every member of our team to feel equally welcome, valued, and respected. If someone looks or acts differently from anyone you’ve seen in that role before, work to get past your cognitive dissonance. Don’t assume that your coworkers share your cultural experiences or political opinions. It’s really hard to be the only [fill in the blank] in a room or on a team. So keep an open mind, question your assumptions, and treat everyone with respect.
Respect for our common humanity
We’re all human. We have good days and bad days. We have strengths and weaknesses. We have talents and insecurities. We are amazing sometimes and we screw up sometimes. We have families, friends, and responsibilities outside of work. It does no one any good to try and pretend this isn’t true.
Give your coworkers the support and respect they need when things go wrong, and they’ll do the same for you.
Respect for our team
In this venture, we will succeed together or we will fail together. No single one of us can accomplish any meaningful portion of this work alone. We will be much stronger if we can all put the needs of the team ahead of our egos.
Teams that form strong bonds perform better. They can enhance individual strengths and mitigate individual weaknesses. They can coordinate rapidly and instinctively when things go wrong. They can come up with solutions that no one person would have found on their own.
Remember that the true measure of your value in any job is not how good you are, but how much better the team is with you on it.
We are embarking on an ambitious journey. There are significant challenges ahead. Being respectful in all these ways, as well as others I haven’t mentioned (respect for our customers, respect for our robots…) will materially impact our chances of success, as well as how much we all enjoy the ride.