Built to Last

As we celebrated the birth of our nation this weekend, Abram and I have paused to consider the quiet presence of order behind the great freedom of independence.

Growing up in a ballet studio, order before independence pressed itself into my muscle memory. Every class began with the structure of pliés and tendus before the freedom of grand jetés. A ballerina succeeds in freedom only through the slog of boring structure.

Without boring structure, decision fatigue takes center stage. Order eliminates decisions, giving greater freedom for flexibility of thinking. Imagine having to search for your coffee cup every morning. The mindless reach for the cup gives space for your mind to wander freely.

As a child, I considered my parents boring because we never moved. Having moved 11 times in the past 15 years, I now see their wisdom in staying rooted. Learning the layout of your new grocery store, or finding your coffee mug, over and over sucks away the freedom of creativity. The mundane takes precedence.

Mundane tasks given structure slide into the background, giving freedom—and that’s what we want for our business. So, for the foreseeable future, we are working on business structure. What folders will be on the desktop? How will money be processed? It’s not glamorous, but it will give us the freedom to lean into the creativity we hope to enjoy.

Our founders spent their lives laboring over the details of this country. In fact, they had to try twice to succeed. I hope we don’t have to restructure (we will, almost certainly, many times), but I am certainly grateful for their attention to detail.