<aside> 👉 tl;dr - Any employee can opt out of working directly with a customer, or propose that Hex not work with them at all. We hold a high bar here, looking for direct harm to our company, community, or team. After soliciting input, these cases will be decided by a Founder tribunal, with written decisions shared with the team.
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Hex is a for-profit corporation whose ostensible purpose is to make money from customers, with employees and investors counting on us to do so.
Hex is also a group of human beings with diverse values and viewpoints, which may not always match up with those of our customers.
Every company faces this dilemma at some point, and it raises some hard questions. When and where should we refuse to work with a customer? On what basis? What activities or viewpoints are disqualifying? What are our viewpoints as a company? Should the corporate entity of Hex Technologies, Inc. even have political or moral viewpoints? Who gets to decide what they are, or who we do or don't work with?
Different companies answer these questions in different ways. Some take any and all business, others are very picky. Some have detailed disqualification criteria, others leave it up to a vote.
As we grow, we're adopting our own policy to provide internal and external clarity on how and why we are going to approach this.
Starting with a few baseline principles:
First, no employee will be coerced into doing work directly for any customer they find objectionable, and can opt out without fear of judgement or retaliation.
This includes supporting customer-specific issues, engaging in a sales cycle, or interacting with their team. This does not include general, cross-customer product development, support, etc.
In the case a team member wants to opt out of working with a customer, they should inform their Lead and work with them on a coverage plan.
Any employee can also raise a broader objection to Hex working with a customer in general. We ask that they send an email to the CEO (Barry) and cc: their Lead outlining their rationale, providing some citations and evidence of the negative consequences to Hex and/or our employees and community.
After receiving a proposed exclusion, Barry will share some details with the company in an anonymous fashion (i.e., the original objector's name needn't be attached), soliciting direct feedback on the relevant points (i.e., not a 100 message Slack flame war). This feedback will also be treated anonymously, unless requested otherwise.