Why

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Our operating principles are critical because:

• We recognise just how damn hard the problem we’ve chosen to work on is. We need to be our best selves.
• We all have limited time and multiple choices regarding how we spend it. We’ve chosen to be here. We want to make the most of it.
• We feel fortunate to be working on such a meaningful problem with such amazing people. We want to maintain this.
• Our world is depending on us, we need teammates we can depend on.

Our dream is to create a workplace where every single person is someone you’re genuinely inspired by; someone you respect and learn from. A place filled with lofty ambitions, lots of laughs and intense learning. Imagine that… it’s ours to make.

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On preservation…

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It is no one’s responsibility to “preserve” this culture. Our culture should not be preserved! Our reality will change, and so must our culture. Much like our product, there will be bugs, cultural debt will build up (stuff that no longer works for us) and we will need to refactor/edit our cultural code to meet our objectives. But, we should always be intentional about how it changes so it remains the culture we want.

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↗️ Go Gig or Go Home

High Bar, All In - what we do matters to humanity, to our customers and to each other. We hold ourselves to an extraordinarily high bar and bring the urgency this mission requires.

Key question to ask yourself - ”Am I acting with the level of dedication, effort and care that this work deserves? Am I giving it my all? And, is the output of my work raising the bar?”

✅ Winning Behaviours

• Having an extraordinarily high bar
• Intensity of focus
• Intensity of effort
• Move with urgency, sustained through flexibility

❌ Losing Behaviours

• Working in a long term unsustainable way
• Trying to do too much
• Not keeping an extraordinarily high bar
• Presenteeism

🦾 Autonomous Ownership

High agency, high ownership - we build systems that take control and make things better in the pyroprocess, the hardest problem in cement. We do the same: find the hardest problems, own them, and fix them.

Key question to ask yourself - **“**Am I proactively looking for ways to make myself, my team and the business better? Am I enthusiastically owning them to their conclusion?”

✅ Winning Behaviours

• Seek out the most difficult and critical problems
• Own the outcome
• Drive your personal development
• Go out of your way to understand company strategy and act accordingly
• Don’t wait to be asked, do, and communicate

❌ Losing Behaviours

• Not looking for the hardest problems
• Hoarding Ownership at the expense of Going Gig
• Not being generous with communication or context
• Going Hero Mode as the only way to solve problems
• Expecting others to chase you
• Expecting everything to happen without follow up

🏭 Concrete Honesty

Be honest — as concrete forms the foundation of our world, genuine honesty and transparency are our cultural bedrock.

Key question to ask yourself — “Am I communicating my thoughts and feedback honestly with my colleagues and the business? Am I doing so even when it’s hard or uncomfortable? Am I seeking out enough feedback to improve myself regularly?”

✅ Winning Behaviours

• Feedback given quickly and kindly
• Actively seeking out feedback early regularly
• Give respectful but truthful feedback to customers
• Feedback given with candour and directness.
• Thoughtfully challenging things not in the business’s best interests
• You don’t withhold feedback because it is a difficult conversation.

❌ Losing Behaviours

• Responding immediately and emotionally
• Not giving timely feedback
• Not getting timely feedback
• Only asking for positive feedback
• Stifling feedback from others by not listening
• Not thinking deeply about feedback for others
• Feedback given too harshly/rudely
• Feedback given to harm someone (politically or otherwise)

😀 Cement it with Fun and Kindness

Have fun, be kind — we’re here to extend earth’s life but ours is still limited. We want to enjoy the ride.

Key question — “Am I making Gigaton a funner and kinder environment? How could I bring some joy and kindness to someone else today?”

✅ Winning Behaviours

• Finding small ways to make people smile
• Bring laughter/fun to meetings/the office
• Act with genuine care and empathy
• Bring the fun to customer relationships
• Bring other great individuals into the company
• Respect people’s differences

❌ Losing Behaviours

• You make others uncomfortable
• You are inappropriate
• Too kind, not helpful (overoptimise on being kind)