Mission and Core Values

At MathWorks, we express who we are as an organization through our mission and our core values.

Our mission articulates our goals as a company and how we go about achieving them. Our core values set out the principles that define who we are and how we work together. Together, they are intrinsically important to the organization and provide different ways of understanding MathWorks. 

Our guiding principle is “do the right thing.” This means doing what is best for our staff members, customers, business partners, and communities for the long term, and believing that “right” answers exist. Our mission and core values express what “doing the right thing” means in our day-to-day work.

Mission

Mission

Technology

Our purpose is to change the world by accelerating the pace of discovery, innovation, development, and learning in engineering and science.

We work to provide the ultimate computing environment for technical computation, visualization, design, simulation, and implementation. We use this environment to provide innovative solutions in a wide range of application areas.

Technical Computing with MATLAB (2:38)
Model-Based Design with MATLAB and Simulink (2:08)

Business

We strive to be the leading worldwide developer and supplier of technical computing software. Our business activities are characterized by quality, innovation, and timeliness; competitive awareness; ethical business practices; and outstanding service to our customers.

Human

We cultivate an enjoyable, vibrant, participatory, and rational work environment that nurtures individual growth, empowerment, and responsibility; fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion; encourages initiative and creativity; values teamwork; shares success; and rewards excellence.

Social

We actively support our local and professional communities through initiatives that advance STEM education, foster staff volunteerism, build environmental sustainability, and aid global relief efforts. Learn more about our Social Mission.

Core Values

Core values are the essential and enduring principles of MathWorks that are integral to our success. These core values are unaffected by the trends of the day or changing market conditions. We explicitly state our core values because we want them understood and practiced throughout the organization.

Continuous Improvement and the Pursuit of Excellence

We relentlessly pursue continuous improvement and excellence in projects, products, processes, and services, and define success as getting the right things done well.

Strive for excellence and great things 

  • Encourage innovation, creativity, and being leading edge
  • Make the ordinary exceed expectations—give it your own special twist
  • Value design—of products, information, and organizations
  • Seek out systemwide and white space solutions
  • Take risks and try new things—use at bat

Relentlessly pursue incremental improvement

  • Never be satisfied—things can always be improved
  • Leave everything you touch a little bit better
  • Sweat the details—they make all the difference
  • Be process oriented—clock building is better than time telling

Get the right things done well

  • Value productivity, getting it done, and making it happen now
  • Drive projects with a sense of urgency and focus on closure
  • Measure twice and cut once—planning saves time
  • Foster a passion for progress and a sense of purpose
  • Persevere and get things done—good things take time
  • Balance seemingly contradictory goals (e.g., “excellent” and “rapid”)

How We Support This Core Value

User Experience Research

User experience research assesses a system in terms of learnability, ease of use, flexibility, safety, effectiveness, efficiency, and the attitude of users to the system. Our User Experience research group conducts user testing, both online and in our onsite usability lab; focus groups; questionnaires; and surveys to provide empirical feedback on prototype and working versions of our software and web site. These structured approaches gather quantitative and qualitative data about how users interact with software.

Design Review

At MathWorks, a “design review” is an opportunity for others to help you to analyze and improve something, whether it is a plan you have prepared or a product concept or a design you have developed. We believe in teamwork, and reviews are a way to get a whole team on the same page. We also believe that even the best idea from the most senior person can be improved by having lots of others look at it, challenge it, and recommend ways to improve it. 

Retrospectives

At the end of a meeting or project, we like to hold with a brief “retrospective” discussion, during which we analyze what went well, what went poorly, and how we might improve the next such meeting or project.

Respect and Invest

We believe in respect for the individual and care about investing in each other’s growth, both for people at MathWorks and for those in our extended community.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you (the Golden Rule)

  • Treat each other with fairness, respect, and honesty
  • Help, support, and include others
  • Empathize to understand others’ views
  • Trust and have faith in others
  • Focus on the situation or behavior, not the person
  • Recognize exceptional performance in ways that are sincere and meaningful

Coach, develop, and train the people you work with

  • Value and bring out the potential of people
  • Challenge people to do their best
  • Keep everybody learning
  • Leave everyone you interact with a little bit better
  • Provide opportunities for personal growth
  • Celebrate successes

How We Support This Core Value

Training

Training reinvests some of our hard-earned profits back into ourselves. This program not only teaches specific skills; it also expands our horizons, provides new perspectives, and brings new ideas into the organization. [ continued ]

Big Picture Orientation

Big Picture Orientation (BPO) was designed to equip new staff members with the tools and information they need to become as effective as possible, as quickly as possible. [ continued ]

Building Staff Connections 

We believe that building personal connections strengthens our ability to collaborate. MathWorks staff with shared interests can connect through resource groups that are as varied as our staff members. [ continued ]

Rational Workplace

We believe in building a rational workplace and in making intelligent decisions. In any given situation, we believe that there is a “right answer” and a best way to do things, and we strive to reach them.

Use rational criteria to make the best decisions

  • Value ideas based on merit and always explain the “why”
  • Take the big picture into account and use the long-term view
  • Try to arrive at a win-win solution
  • Hold decisions to the sunlight test
  • Get the right people involved
  • Encourage conflict of ideas; discourage conflict between people

Benefit from the boundaryless

  • Let people into your stuff—leverage others’ expertise and perspective
  • Get into other people’s stuff—contribute to their projects
  • Use design reviews and brainstorming—many heads are always better than one
  • Share information, planning, and decision making
  • Use cross-functional teams to get things done
  • Encourage ownership, not control

Build a workplace where logic prevails

  • Seek to understand the “why” behind policies and rules
  • Value others based on their knowledge and contribution, not their position
  • Use the same “rules” for everybody—equity and consistency are important
  • Endeavor to reward excellence and avoid entitlement
  • Work to build an environment free of politics
  • Fix problems that interfere with productive work

How We Support This Core Value

Advisory Teams

Each business group within the company has an advisory team. This team is composed of people from areas in the company with a special connection with or expertise in this particular business group. The advisory team helps the business group set priorities, solve problems, and see the big picture. Business groups meet with their advisory teams twice a year to review progress on objectives, examine metrics, and develop new plans and directions.

Best Practices

We have very few rules at MathWorks. Instead, we use a collection of best practices, procedures developed by individuals or groups that have proven successful enough to merit adoption by others in the company. Examples include how to run a meeting, how to write a performance review (or self-review), and how to interview a job applicant. Best practices encourage creative thinking and enable us to benefit from one another's experience and ingenuity. We believe that they are more effective and more motivating than formal rules and lengthy procedures manuals.

Learning and Self-Improvement

We maintain curiosity toward the world and have a passion for lifelong learning. We believe in continuous self-improvement and developing our own leadership skills.

Invest in your own learning

  • Learn, grow, and improve by reading, listening, asking, noticing, taking things apart, networking, teaching, subscribing, training, browsing, and exploring
  • Seek out feedback from others and opportunities for personal growth
  • Expose yourself to new things, even if they don’t directly help your job today
  • Seek ways to apply what you’ve learned
  • Compete against yourself—not others—to take each of your skills to the next level
  • Strive to get out of your comfort zone

Develop your own leadership skills—it’s everyone’s business to be a leader

  • Lead by example
  • Find passion and joy in your work
  • Take initiative and ownership
  • Approach everything with a positive attitude, enthusiasm, and optimism

How We Support This Core Value

To support our training philosophy, we offer several programs and resources.

Orientation, Leadership, and Management

Programs include Big Picture Orientation, New Manager Orientation, Manager Fundamentals, and Manager Skills Toolkit. [ continued ]

Professional Skills

MathWorks offers workshops and on-demand learning resources for developing professional skills. [ continued ]

Technical Skills

Staff can participate in training to enhance their applications, software development, and other technical skills. [ continued ]

MathWorks will pay for professional subscriptions and books that support your work.

Wellness

We offer a variety of courses each year on topics in health, fitness, parenting, and financial planning.

Credibility and Integrity

We conduct ourselves with uncompromising integrity and honesty as individuals, as teams, and as a company. We strive to earn enduring credibility with others, which we believe is essential to long-term personal and business relationships.

Cultivate credibility—be worthy of belief

  • Do what you say you will do—always follow through
  • Be responsive—return your phone calls, email, and other requests for action in a timely way
  • Communicate status and decisions—openly, and in a timely manner
  • Remember the fragile nature of credibility—it takes time to build and moments to lose
  • Be authentic, genuine, and true to yourself—so that people can take you at face value
  • Listen—seek first to understand

Act with integrity, honesty, and courage

  • Stand up for what you believe in 
  • Speak up or take responsibility for something that’s wrong, even if not in your area
  • Put values ahead of short term results
  • Tell the whole truth—deliver the complete message
  • Be forthright with bad news and difficult issues

How We Support This Core Value

Learning and Communicating at All Levels

Training courses such as Difficult Conversations and Respectful and Productive Feedback help staff learn tools and techniques for communicating effectively, even when opinions differ. We also have open dialogue with senior staff: Jack Little, our president, hosts a Q&A session at quarterly company meetings, and similar Q&As also happen at the department level. In addition, financials and other confidential information are presented to staff at company meetings, demonstrating transparency.

Encouraging Honest Dialogue 

Human Resources established an Affinity Group Quarterly Forum. This initiative brings together leaders of various affinity groups within MathWorks, providing a dedicated space for honest and transparent dialogue, collaboration, and strategic planning. The goals are to listen and respond to the needs of our staff and to ensure that every decision and policy reflects our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and respect for all individuals.