One operator, on the record.

Settle is operated by a single person — Sharmadave Subramaniam, a physician by training — with AI assistance. That is a structural fact about the lab, and we treat it as something to disclose and engineer around, not to paper over.

Operating model

Research, code, probes, and drafting are executed with AI assistance under the operator's direction; the operator is the final decision-maker on everything published. An external reviewer seat — vacant at launch and being recruited — will hostile-read every commissioned assessment before it ships and record a named ruling in the report's methods section. The seat carries a binding veto: a blocked report does not ship. Until it is filled, no commissioned assessment is issued. Terms, fee, and conflict standard are public on the seat page.

Why the disclosures are anchored

Trust in a one-person lab cannot rest on the person. It rests on the record: every assessment, policy, and method document is hash-anchored in the Settle Ledger at publication, and anchors carry OpenTimestamps proofs into the Bitcoin chain. If this site and the anchored record ever disagree, the anchored record is correct — and the difference is a defect we will correct publicly.

Continuity

Continuity arrangements — a dormancy-banner rule and a planned key-escrow arrangement — are described in the Independence Policy, together with their current status. We publish the status rather than imply arrangements that are still being built.

Funding and independence

The lab is self-funded by the operator. It holds no token and will not issue one; that is a recorded, closed decision. Revenue, when it exists, will come from commissioned assessments on the terms set out in the Independence Policy. The full conflict-of-interest standard — three tiers, disclose-and-recuse — is in the Independence Policy.