Proletariat Core Values: Week 2 – Decide Fast and Iterate
Good decisions are hard, but fast decisions are good.
In this 5-part series, I’m walking through the core values we used at Proletariat Inc., what they meant, how we wrote them, and how they shaped our day-to-day work. These weren’t slogans. They were tools for making decisions and building a culture that could scale with trust and speed.
Last week I wrote about Understand Why, our value around curiosity, transparency, and trust. This week is all about velocity, action and learning.
The Core Value as Written
Decide Fast and Iterate
Good decisions are hard, but fast decisions are good. Quickly agree and commit to a well-reasoned direction, even without consensus. The tradeoff is worth it. Act, gather feedback, measure against expectations, and adjust accordingly. It’s okay to be wrong, work to learn from it quickly. Nothing’s sacred and we should always question the status quo.
Why It Mattered
Teams suffer from indecision and inertia far more often than from bad choices. The longer you spend discussing a decision around a white board the more time you waste speculating when you could be testing.
This value was about embracing action, reducing fear of failure, and creating a culture where we’d rather ship something rough and learn than wait for something to be perfect.
It also reflected a reality about building complex products like games: the sooner you start iterating, the sooner you start solving real problems.
What It Encouraged
Decisiveness over consensus – Consensus is ideal but not required, it’s better to disagree and commit fully than wait for a compromise
Action over perfection – Waiting for 100% clarity usually meant we were already behind
Data over assumptions – Every assumption will be tested eventually, might as well start as early as possible
This wasn’t a license to be reckless. It was a call to take smart, intentional action, and then be humble enough to adapt quickly and go again.
How We Applied It
“Decide Fast and Iterate” showed up in our product development, leadership meetings, and team dynamics:
In game and product design, we prototyped quickly and often. We'd test something internally or with players, kill what didn’t work, and build on what did
If a candidate had promise, we moved fast to get them hired and provided a strong onboarding plan
Leaders had clear ownership to make quick calls, rather than waiting for universal agreement
In production process or company policy decisions we were willing embrace a change quickly, while measuring the impact
It also gave permission to make mistakes, as long as we learned from them and improved.
What Made It Work
We didn’t just say “move fast and break things.” Making quick decisions was paired with:
Psychological safety – People and teams weren’t punished for early mistakes if they iterated quickly
Short feedback loops – Reviews, retros, and playtests were built into our process
Visible support from leadership – Leadership made imperfect decisions in public, adjusted when needed, and talked openly about what we were learning
Final Thought
“Decide Fast and Iterate” helped us bias to action. Whenever you are building something new it is almost impossible to get it right on the first try. We wanted to spend the smallest amount of time possible to consider a plan for action and then build iteration time into the process.
When paired with “Understand Why,” it created a powerful combo: transparent decisions used to drive rapid iteration towards the best idea.
This allowed us to adopt a culture of being metrics informed not metrics driven. The ability to build quickly, gather qualitative and quantitative feedback, and iterate, is very powerful. However, applying the feedback to properly choose a direction is always a judgement call.
(And if you missed it, check out my post on how to write core values for tips on building your own)