Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I still have a tough time understanding any goal != "maximizing our customers' success".

I once went to a sales seminar for technical people and we had to introduce ourselves and describe what our companies did. The first 15 people described their products. Then on my turn, I said something like, "We provide our customers tools to help them succeed." The instructor remarked that I was the only one who mentioned "customers" in his introduction. I didn't even think about it at the time; that's just the way I was trained.

It took almost ten years, but I think we finally got the mission for the next ten nailed.

Good for you, Joel. In your business, I imagine it's a fine line between an employee and a customer because they're both programmers. I would expect that sooner or later, focus must revert to the customer.