Thanks so much for being part of Buffer and expanding the culture and values and how much we can help customers.
As part of joining the team, as with any other company, there are a number of legal forms to fill out. Some of these can seem intimidating, and we wanted to take a moment to clarify some of it and share our pledge to you.
To begin with, we must say that this pledge does not modify the agreements that you, as an existing or new team member, are signing. In the rare case of a conflict, the agreements will control. To help you understand our view, we want to share our additional thoughts:
These documents are for worst-case scenarios, and also are what an acquirer might require from us, should we find ourselves going through that process. It is completely up to us as the executives (more technically, the board) whether we would ever enforce what is in the agreement.
We want to do everything we can to help you be the happiest, most productive and to progress as much as you can towards your life goals, as part of Buffer. We completely trust you. We don’t track hours worked and we don’t mind where you work from. We know that you’re ambitious and self-driven and you’ll be in a team within Buffer and work with the team towards goals.
We love it when team members have side projects or side startups. If you have an idea or you’re working on something, share it with the team. As founders we want to help as much as we can, we’d love to share our experiences from the early days of Buffer.
If your project grows and you want to pursue it full-time, we’ll be excited for you and want to keep helping if that’s useful for you. This has happened many times before and it’s one of the most gratifying things to see as a founder. If you let us, we might even invest!
When you get equipment from us (Kindle, laptop, etc.) it's yours to own. When you leave the company, we want you to keep these items too. We’d only ever ask you to return or remove things which Buffer needs to keep internal.
If you are thinking that somewhere else might be a better fit than Buffer, we might be sad but we’ll be excited to help you find the very best place for you to be and thrive. We want you to land your top choice, and we’ll help with advice, introductions, or simply a listening ear. Let us know while you’re still part of Buffer and take time off for the interviews.
We strive to work as servant leaders. Having a positive culture and challenging the norms to achieve it is part of what excites us. The team is what matters the most: We can’t keep growing and innovating without being part of the group, and all the credit belongs to you.
We care a lot and we’ll always try to do the right thing by you.
This pledge is a work in progress and we might find things to add to it from time to time. The nature of it will never change.