Rule 1 of 33 · Chapter I — How We Communicate
Default to writing, default to open
Why this rule exists
We are a small team that does its best thinking asynchronously, so the written word is our primary medium, not a fallback for when a meeting fails. Writing forces you to think a problem through before you inflict it on other people, and it leaves an artifact that someone in a different timezone, or a different year, can read without you in the room. Open by default means the writing lives somewhere the whole team can find it: a public channel, a shared doc, a pull request, not a private thread that quietly excludes everyone who wasn't cc'd. Closed communication feels efficient in the moment and creates an information underclass over time, where the people who happened to be in the DM know things the rest of us don't. The cost of writing something down is paid once, by you, now. The cost of not writing it down is paid repeatedly, by everyone who has to ask. We would rather over-communicate in public than run a company on tribal knowledge and lucky overhearing.
In practice
When you have something to say to more than one person, say it in a channel, not a DM. Prefer a short written update over a quick call when the thing can wait a few hours, which is more often than it feels. Write documents in shared spaces from the first draft, not after they're polished, so people can watch the thinking form. Use DMs for genuinely personal things and for the human glue that keeps us liking each other, not for decisions or project state. When someone asks you a question privately whose answer would help others, answer it in the open and link them. Assume your writing will be read by someone who joined after you left, and write accordingly.
When it doesn't apply
Sensitive things stay private: feedback about a person, anything involving compensation, health, or conflict, and early half-formed ideas you're not ready to defend. And open does not mean firehose; posting in public is a reason to be considerate of everyone's attention, not an excuse to think out loud endlessly where it can't be muted.