Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

Abstract

My parents started a software company out of our family room when I was just five years old As a child, the business felt like the sixth member of our family A fourth child who grew up alongside my sisters and me and whom my parents struggled with, stressed over, and strove to infuse with their values just as they did their flesh and blood children. Take pride in your work and stand behind what you do applied equally to homework and product launches. The Golden Rule to treat others as you would like to be treated meant that, long before mandates, my parents provided all their employees with health insurance and a living wage. Along the way, corporate documents were drawn up and the corporation was "born," a legal resident of our home state of Washington. But such formalities were an inconsequential blip compared to the seemingly endless discussions around the dinner table about coding issues; playing hide and seek in successively larger office spaces; or watching my parents put on a good face while they stressed over sales numbers.

My family's business is the classic Ameican success story. What started in our den now occupies a small office building housing several dozen employees. My older sister and her husband have taken over the business-the next generation of the family enterprise. There has never been a formal corporate policy instructing the business: 'Don't be evil. "Instead, my parents, and now my sister, run a company that mirrors their personal beliefs about honesty, integrity, morality, and hard work. A business that reflects who we are as a family. Envisioning my family without the business is difficult but the idea that the corporation could exist apart from my family simply does not compute.

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