Our Philosophy

Independence

We live in a world that gives us an incredible amount of independence. We can choose where we live, what we buy, who we work for, what we believe, and increasingly, how much of our lives we want to manage on our own. I don't think that is something we should want to undo. Having the freedom to build your own life is one of the great achievements of modern society.

But there is something easy to miss when we think about independence this way: none of us are actually independent from one another.

The things that make our individual lives possible depend on an enormous network of other people. We earn money because someone else values what we do. The things we own are useful because someone makes, maintains, repairs, sells, or exchanges them. Businesses succeed because people choose to support them. Even the most self-sufficient person is living inside a system built and maintained by people they will probably never meet.

Interdependence

I don't think this makes independence meaningless. I think it means we've misunderstood what independence really is.

Being independent doesn't mean that you don't need anyone. It means that you have the freedom to decide how you participate, what you contribute, what you exchange, and who you build relationships with.

The more people we can freely connect with, the more possibilities we have as individuals. Knowing someone nearby who can help you solve a problem gives you another option. Knowing where to find a skill, a business, a space, or an opportunity gives you another option. Having people you can rely on gives you another option.

Interdependence is not the opposite of independence. It is what makes independence sustainable.

The world around us

The internet has made it incredibly easy to connect with the rest of the world. We can find almost anything online, meet people on the other side of the planet, order things from places we've never visited, and participate in communities that would have been impossible to reach a generation ago.

I don't want to give any of that up.

But sometimes it feels like we've become better at seeing the entire world than we are at seeing the place immediately around us.

There are people living nearby who have things we need, and people who need things we could provide. There are businesses trying to find customers, people looking for somewhere to go, spaces that could be used, skills that could be shared, and interests that could bring people together.

Most of these connections don't require another global marketplace or another algorithm deciding what we're supposed to care about. They often just require us to know that the other person exists.

What happens to communities

There is another consequence to becoming increasingly mobile and increasingly disconnected from the places around us. We have become very good at taking the value we create with us.

A person can spend twenty years building a successful business in a town, accumulate enough wealth to retire somewhere else, and leave. There is nothing wrong with wanting a different life. The freedom to do that is worth protecting.

But when enough people do it, something begins to happen to the place they leave behind. The people who helped make the community valuable disappear from it. Their businesses change hands, their relationships disperse, and eventually the next generation inherits a place that may be more expensive while somehow feeling less alive.

I've watched this happen in places that mattered to me. Places can become more desirable and more expensive at the same time, until the people who gave them their character can no longer afford to participate in them.

The outside world sees growth. The people who lived there can sometimes experience something else: the slow disappearance of the place they knew.

I don't think the answer is to stop people from moving, to keep wealth out, or to reject the opportunities that globalization has given us. I don't want to return to a smaller world.

I want us to get better at building value that stays connected to the people and places that helped create it.

What we leave behind

This matters especially for younger generations. Many people entering adulthood today are discovering that the places where previous generations were able to build stable lives have become increasingly difficult to afford. Young people can contribute to a city without necessarily being able to build a life there.

I don't think this should become a source of resentment between generations. The people who came before us built much of the world we inherited. They deserve the security and freedom they worked for.

But if we want that world to continue working, we also have to think about what we are building for the people who come next.

The answer shouldn't be for every generation to take what it can and then leave. It should be for each generation to leave something behind that the next can build upon.

The people who have spent decades building businesses, relationships and communities have something incredibly valuable to pass forward: experience, knowledge, resources, and the understanding of how a place actually works.

Younger people need the opportunity to take those things and build something of their own.

Success should not have to mean escape.

Community is participation

I don't think community means everyone knowing everyone. It doesn't mean everyone agreeing with one another, and it certainly doesn't mean giving up your individuality for the sake of a group.

Community is much simpler than that. It is having enough connection between people that what one person has can become useful to another, and that people have reasons to show up for one another.

When that happens, something interesting starts to happen to the place you live. An unfamiliar person becomes someone you can ask for help. A skill becomes an opportunity. A local business becomes something you actually know and care about. An event gives you a reason to leave the house. A shared interest turns into a friendship.

Over time, the place around you becomes more than somewhere you happen to live.

It becomes somewhere you participate in.

Resilience through connection

A society can become incredibly wealthy, technologically advanced, and globally connected while the people within it become increasingly disconnected from the people immediately around them.

When that happens, we can end up with a strange kind of fragility. We have access to more things than ever, but fewer relationships through which we can actually navigate the world when something changes.

Real resilience isn't about becoming completely self-sufficient. None of us can do that, and I don't think we should want to.

Real resilience comes from having more ways to connect, more ways to exchange value, and more people who can participate in solving a problem when one inevitably appears.

A person who knows what exists around them has more choices. A person who knows people nearby has more opportunities. A person who has something valuable to offer and knows where to share it can do more with what they have.