Aunt Carolyn spoke of the legacy of love she inherited from her mother, my great-grandmother, Flora Brown. She shared how she carries that legacy forward in her own family, as a mother and grandmother, and, at the time, her excitement about becoming a great-grandmother: GiGi. I've been sitting with this reflection for the past two weeks. The gift was not only that Aunt Carolyn shared her story; the gift was that we created space for her to leave a record — a living, loving record.

Scaling operations is not the same as scaling culture. You can hire faster than you can build trust. You can document systems easier than you can transfer spirit. And you can grow a team and programming much more quickly than you can grow a founder's capacity to lead that team in a way that honors both the vision and the humanity of the people doing the work.

I responded via email, naming my concerns, the misalignment and my disappointment, and I signed it: “In the spirit of loving accountability.”