"The entire point of the thing is to work with people I like, doing things I love"
Second Bit is not just a software company. It's a software team. We're not all that interested in selling software—our passion is for writing it.
At Second Bit, we believe in the same set of principles that drove the TMRC hackers at MIT. We think the best way to improve the world we live in is to give everyone the best tools we can, and to give them all the help we can. That's why so much of our software is released as open source software with permissive licenses—we want to encourage people to use our work, instead of duplicating effort.
We want to Do The Right Thing
In the beginning of its life, the hacker movement in MIT's AI labs had a concept of "right" that we like. It's the idea that some things are just right. A hack was "right" when it couldn't be any more succinct, couldn't be any more elegant. It was perfect.
At Second Bit, we like to take this idea of "right" and apply it to everything we do. Our applications are "right" when they're decentralised and elegantly structured. Our monetisation strategy is "right" when it aligns with our users, when success for us means success for everyone. Everything, from software to blog posts to the company itself is subjected to this standard of "right".
Untapped potential
We're not perfect. Nobody is. We try to keep our imperfection at the forefront of our minds—in fact, we've enshrined it as a company tagline. We have wonderful potential, but it is (and always will be) untapped. We're going to get as close as we can to fulfilling it, but our potential is just too great.
We need you. We need everyone. Our projects and products, unless there's a legal reason preventing it, tend to be open source software. We accept contributions, whether it's an email or pull request. We know the only way we're ever going to do anything worthwhile is if we stand on the shoulders of giants, and we're flattered if giants decide to stand on our shoulders.
Bring something to the table
We love our work, creating things that people love to use, but we think the other things we love are just as important. Whether we're arguing about which version of Peter Pan is the best or quoting Tron and The Social Network to each other, we try to make sure we maintain strong relationships, outside our work.
We believe that our outside lives influence our work, and that our quirky culture is a large part of what makes our products so much fun to use.
Show no fear
We try our best to not let fear stand in our way. Whether it's trying something new or eschewing the norms that our industry has created, we strongly believe in experimenting.
History in the making
Second Bit was officially formed on December 2nd, 2010, as an LLC in Buffalo, New York. The company has grown since then, our development strategies have advanced and matured, and our software has been used by thousands of people and reviewed to much critical acclaim.
We love what we do, and we strive to be better at our craft. And to us, that's all that really matters.
