There’s a reason the Olympic motto has outlasted every athlete who ever chased it: Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter. Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together. It was never really about the podium. It was about what happens when people push each other to be a little better, and choose to do it side by side.
A sports culture wasn’t something we deliberately set out to create at Calfus. It found its way into our workplace organically, one hour at a time. And in hindsight, it’s become a reflection of who we are as a team.
A few employees who loved badminton began squeezing in an hour after work every now and then. There was no grand plan, no formal initiative, just people showing up because they enjoyed it. But somehow, that one hour stuck. What started as an occasional game became a daily ritual, and a small group of regulars grew into a thriving community. People formed their own teams, mixed across different groups, and even those who could barely return a serve a few months ago now rally with confidence and hold their own on the court.
What’s genuinely lovely to watch is who turns up for that hour. An intern who joined two months ago. A CXO who could easily skip it for “more important” things but doesn’t. Someone from a recently acquired team, still learning the Calfus way, finding an unexpectedly easy way in through a shuttlecock, of all things. Titles fall away. What’s left is just the game, and the people playing it.
In many ways, it mirrors the culture we’re intentionally building with AI. A system gets better the more it’s exercised, and it’s often the daily reps, not the occasional bursts. On the court, that’s just called practice. In our work, we call it iteration. The best ideas can come from anywhere, and some of the strongest outcomes happen when minds come together to build. We often see that spirit on the court before it shows up in a standup.
Beyond Badminton
Not all teamwork at Calfus plays out on a badminton court. Sometimes it looks like a group gathered around a carrom board, murmuring strategy and anticipating the next move. And then there are the more energetic moments, whether it’s cricket or soccer. That’s where you quickly discover who has your back under pressure and who’s cheering you on, regardless of the scoreboard. The trust and camaraderie built in those moments don’t stay on the field. They find their way back into how we work together every day. Once a month we take a completely different kind of pause, a group yoga session to slow down and breathe, which in a company that spends its days shipping fast is its own small act of discipline. And every now and then, an evening of bowling does the trick: loud, light, and a good reminder that winding down together matters just as much as grinding together.
One of my favourite memories from this organically grown culture is an early-morning run with Baljeet. It was my first proper run in nearly a decade, and he stayed by my side the whole way, making sure I didn’t give up. Somewhere in that run, between breaths, he explained how mitochondria create energy, why the burn is just chemistry at work, and how the body adapts when you keep showing up.
It struck me afterwards how much that morning mirrored everything we’re trying to do with intelligence at Calfus. Progress starts with understanding the underlying mechanics, whether in a person or a model. Baljeet wasn’t just encouraging me to run again. He was giving me a roadmap to the questions every new runner has “Why” and “How”. And once you understand that, you start showing up differently in everything you do.
A Team that Plays Together, Builds Together
That same persistence shows up in unexpected places. Recently, one of our engineers built an agent using Aether that tracked live World Cup matches and pinged the team every time a goal went in. It was just for fun, but it’s the same architecture that carries the serious work: Aetherion agents are built to keep going, tracking their own state and retrying until the job is done, whether that takes a millisecond or months. On the field or off it, the trait is the same, keep showing up until it’s done.
We build Agentic AI, and the qualities that make a great AI collaborator show up everywhere else too. Curiosity, adaptability, the willingness to be a beginner again: we see them on the badminton court and at the carrom table, not just in our work. That’s why we ship fitness the way we ship code, deliberately and consistently, because it compounds the same way. A team that supports each other’s growth, in health and in work, is a team built to go the distance.
Faster. Higher. Stronger. Together. Even though it’s the Olympic motto, we have come to live by it as an organization.
