When we started Cobot, we weren’t intentional in thinking about the community we wanted to build around our startup. We just knew we wanted to work with great people, great investors, great customers, great vendors, and great partners.

In practice, though, the community you build very much shapes who you will become. Communities have shared values and expectations. Communities can care for each other or not care about each other. We choose the communities we participate in and create based on our own values.

At Amazon, I was fortunate to be one of the first 20 Principal Engineers at the company. The work I’m perhaps most proud of at Amazon was to partner with those peers to establish the values and tenets that would form the backbone of the Principal Engineering community. By setting the tone and establishing the values that Principal Engineers were expected to make time for each other, to help each other, to be a resource for each other, we created a kind of engineering community that we had always wished existed. Often Principal Engineers, if they do leave Amazon, boomerang back. One of the reasons they state is that the community of peers Amazon has created is unique and something they missed.

The robotics organization I led at Amazon eventually grew to over 10,000 worldwide. I found that empowerment and autonomy that Amazon offered leaders was incredible and addicting, but for me at least, it came with some level of isolation as well. At one leadership offsite, we brainstormed a possible new Amazon Leadership Principle: Invested in Each Other’s Success. While I don’t have all the words we put together then, the idea was to propagate a culture where everyone is invested in each other’s success.

I’m proud to say at Cobot, perhaps even though it wasn’t overtly intentional, we have created a community around our startup where we are all deeply invested in each other’s success.

There is perhaps no greater evidence of this than the customer videos we are showcasing on our website as part of our Proxie reveal. The enterprises we work with are deeply considerate about their brand and the community they build around their companies.

So when I reached out to Erez Agmoni who until recently was leading Innovation at Maersk about shooting a video, his rapid “yes” delighted us. When I reached out to Brad Miller, CIO of Moderna, he quickly said “I’d love to.” When I reached out to Peter McCullough, SVP of Global Operations at Owens & Minor, he also said “yes” quickly. We were hesitant to reach out to our colleagues at Tampa General Hospital as they had just gone through two back-to-back hurricanes, but when Donna Tope, VP of Operations, Rachel Feinman, VP of Innovation, and Jason Swoboda, Emerging Technology and Health Innovation lead all came back enthusiastic to do it, we were thrilled.

And then when we heard the sentiments they shared during their interviews… we all teared up. We had not fully internalized the depth of the relationships we have built and the impact working together has made on all of us.

To be “Invested In Each Other’s Success” is the greatest gift you can give, in my opinion. To build a community with that as a shared value is unique.

I am a deep believer that those of us who lead from the front get to decide where the future goes. At Cobot, we believe in a future where, by working together - collaborating, we make a better, more abundant future.

We look forward to continuing to build our community of like-minded employees, investors, customers and supporters. Thank you for being a part of it!