The Helius Manifesto

If you’re part of Helius, we think you’re exceptional. While that’s necessary to work here, it’s not enough. Changing reality is no easy task and requires hard work, creativity, and relentlessness. Here’s how we’ll get there.

The Mission

Helius’ mission is to increase the economic potential of the world’s developers. And we believe this is only possible with crypto rails.

Our Operating Principles

Faster

This is the main principle behind everything we do. Speed is the default behind every decision. Everything can be faster: API calls, customer support, meetings, calls, sales cycles, and even your typing speed. Yes, I am serious about that last one.

Divine Discontent

Nothing is more demoralizing for winners than mediocrity. Do not let yourself or your colleagues ever ship something they’re not excited about. If it’s not a 10/10, try again. If you think “good enough” is good enough, or if you don’t enjoy the intrinsic process of aiming for excellence, my direct ask is that you work elsewhere.

Clear Communication

Maximize context per sentence, add TL;DRs, don’t use fluff words (e.g. replace ”I guess we could,” with “I will finish this by X pm on Monday”), and remove unnecessary words. Default to directness over superficial politeness. No typos. Respect the reader and their time.

Assertive Action

We are not bureaucrats, we are builders. We don’t get feedback from academic journals, we get feedback from customers. Ship something, get it out, get feedback. Take action. Replace all “I can/could/should” with “I will”.

Optimism

If you don’t believe that the future can look better than the past, you have picked the wrong company. Reframe all “problems” with “opportunity”. We keep the bar high because we are fundamentally optimistic about human potential and what a group of talented people can do together.

Our Expectations

These are the traits that we evaluate ourselves and our peers on every day and every quarter.

Ownership

Are you a passenger or are you a driver? Did it matter you showed up today? Are you proactive? If not, you are not an owner. Do not wait for things to come to you, take ownership and make them happen. We don’t care about your name, the hours you work, or your title — we care about earnest effort and repeated results.

Execution

Coming up with ideas is 10% of the job, the rest lies in execution. We are not philosophers; we don’t get paid for ideas — we are builders, and we get paid for shipping things people love. Dollar stores sell "good enough." We're not in the business of good enough. We're in the business of "I can't believe how good this is; I can’t get enough.”

Before asking your peers for feedback, first ask yourself: “Am I excited about what I built? Is this a 10/10? Do I feel good attaching my name to this?” — if your answer is full of excuses, try again. I understand some come from the school of “move fast and break things” — we do not do that here. If we make a mistake, entire markets are affected.

Communication

Poor communication in a company is akin to a blood clot in the body. If the body can’t communicate, it falls sick and dies. If the company can’t communicate, it falls sick and dies. If you don’t value communication, then you don’t value the mission. Listen more than you talk. Be clear, succinct, and direct. If your English needs work, work on it.

What’s Unique About Being at Helius

What can you do at Helius that you can’t do anywhere else?

• Develop the frontier of high-scale, low-latency distributed systems in adversarial environments with high-stakes and impact
• Scale crypto and blockchain holistically, from first principles
• Build and accelerate the first global financial computer
• Increase the economic potential of the world
• Update the financial system
• Evolve capitalism