What are your startup's philosophies?

I'd love to know what the (written or unwritten) philosophies of ViaWeb and YCombinator were/are!

If it's not fun, do something else.

Build it, they will come

I'd say that I only have one philosophy: "Do it right".

What happens when you've done it wrong, and can't fix it? What about before you have anything to do, and need to come up with something? What about when selecting between severally (seemingly) equally-important things to "do right"?

And all this is just for yourself. What's the "right" way to motivate someone else to work? To motivate yourself? To fire someone? (And this is avoiding the oft-answered-here ones such as "to find the right kind of employee.")