Keeping secrets

I've gotten so many wonderful questions in our Ask Paul video series that I cannot possibly answer them all even in a second lifetime. That's truly gratifying and encouraging for me. I thought perhaps I'd try and make a small dent by occasionally answering some here in these Paul's Posts. Simon, in Toronto Canada, writes:

It is so refreshing to see the honesty, transparency, over and above customer service and the willingness to educate for the customers. Rather than keeping everything as snooty secretive, high tech magic voodoo as some companies do. It is this attitude that attracted me to PS Audio. My question to Paul is: Do other companies resent you for this, did you make some enemies?

I am sure we must have made a few enemies along the way. In fact, I know we have. I have been on the receiving end of a few tirades about how we're destroying the high-end audio good old boys club with our lack of design secrets, easy public access to our engineers, working directly with end users, open door factory visitation rights, and willingness to pay original retail for trade-ins. It wasn't that long ago that a fellow manufacturer asked me to help him understand how a servo subwoofer works. I not only helped him understand but sent detailed schematics and a parts list. This came as quite a surprise as we are considered "competitors". I suppose the long and short of it is that we don't think of our fellow manufacturers as competitors or rivals, just as we don't consider our end users as entities. Our end users, like our fellow manufacturers, are people just like us. It just seems to us that segregating companies and people into categories—us and them—can only lead to the building of walls and barriers. Instead, we'd like to find ways to tear down walls and remove barriers and one of the best ways to do that is to treat everyone with respect and be as generous as possible. I know that flies in the face of the scrappy business fighter mentality where "nice guys finish last", but for us, we'd rather be part of the last place community than scrapping with those scrambling to the top. It may be a slower climb, but we're having a good time along the way.