When Jon Mattingly, Hamish Cohen, Sean Burke, and I founded Proteus back in 2015, we weren’t trying to disrupt an industry or chase “unicorn” status for a Private Equity buyout. We just wanted to build the kind of company we wished we could have worked with when we were litigating.

That meant building our company around people as the foundation, not the processes, and not ego. And it meant setting down, from day one, a clear and uncompromising set of Core Values.

These weren’t marketing fluff or mission-statement wallpaper. They were our blueprint: the standard by which we’d hire, the lens through which we’d make decisions, and the expectations we’d hold ourselves to – even when no one was watching.

Let me reintroduce them:

• We respond promptly, providing context and detail.
• We deliver results, not excuses.
• We deliver a premium experience.

• Our culture and reputation depend on words matching actions.
• We are firm, fair, and friendly.
• We deliver a premium experience.

• We enjoy the peaks and expect the valleys.
• Success is rented; rent is due daily.

• We maintain a healthy tension between process and innovation.
• Your comfort zone will kill you.

We didn’t adopt these values after we scaled. We didn’t outsource them to a consultant. These are the principles we started with, and we’re glad we did, because they’ve anchored us through the inevitable storms and guided us as we’ve grown.

That’s why, even as we acknowledge milestones like our 10th anniversary and a new headquarters in the Salesforce Tower, what we’re most proud of isn’t the growth. It’s the consistency. The fact that who we were then is still who we are now.

Our Core Values aren’t legacy artifacts. They’re our daily operating manual. They’re how we interview, how we manage, how we serve. And the longer we’ve been at this, the more we’ve realized: those values aren’t just what built Proteus. They are Proteus.

We believe so deeply in our employees that we are launching a campaign soon, where our employees will have the opportunity to discuss our core values and how they resonate with them.