My startup
Why Kind Engineering?
I want to prove that kindness at work is possible.
I've noticed a pattern in the tech industry: people act cold or arrogant. Everything is about where did you study, who do you know, what have you built, is it successful, do you have money, are you on every trend, are you an enemy or a member of my cult. Some say that's just the nature of the world, but I'm tired of it.
That's why kindness is the core value of my company. But kindness doesn't mean servitude or weakness. I want kindness practiced within our team first. Of course we'll treat clients well, but if we don't act as a team internally, how can we reflect that externally?
The world wants us to lose our humanity in every aspect of life. I refuse to be driven by elitism, meritocracy, greed, or to adopt a cold Machiavellian approach disguised as stoicism.
Our Values
What we don't do:
- No gatekeeping.
- No elitism.
- No hidden agendas.
- No crunch culture.
- No micromanagement.
What we believe:
Everyone can learn anything. Not everyone learns the same way or has the same opportunities. Competence matters, but people can be more if you let them.
Too many companies preach values while doing the opposite. We're not doing that. I think these values are very reasonable.
Structure & Compensation
Everyone gets the same compensation. We plan to stay small, so this works. This is influenced by communist ideals from each according to ability, to each according to need. I'm not interested in extracting maximum value from people.
This isn't a democracy. Someone needs to make final calls when the team can't reach consensus, and that's me. But day-to-day we work as equals. Think benevolent dictator in the open source sense, I'm the maintainer who merges or rejects, but if I make bad decisions, anyone can fork. All our projects are open source, which is core to hacker culture: information should be free, collaboration over competition. The structure keeps itself in check.
The Skeptics
"You can't run a business on kindness, this is naive idealism."
They're wrong. Productivity is achieved this way, not despite it. And there are ways to protect ourselves from bad actors without becoming them. Kindness isn't radical. It's just treating people like people.
What MODELO Does
We focus on computer graphics applications across industries, entertainment, manufacturing, healthcare. We provide components for complex simulations and visualizations, with a focus on geometry-related computations.
The Team
Five founding partners: Dany Motilla(M0TH), Øyvind Sørøy, Davide Vigano, Frederick Ayala, and Christopher E. Sanchez. Different backgrounds, same values.
The Experiment
I don't have all the answers, and I'm sure I'll make mistakes. But I'm going to prove that this is just a more sustainable way of growing a tech company.
If you're tired of toxic workplaces and performative culture, this might resonate with you.