The Exchanges

Q transparency, are there any limits to transparency? Are there any boundaries? Is it salaries? Is it, you know, I often say the startups never involve team in M&A discussions or progress because it's just, it's unhelpful and it's unproductive. Don't actually say about fundraising. It reduces morale if they know that it's dragging on. There is a limit to transparency. I, I always say, how do you feel about that?

A Because we're transparent by default, we have the longest list of things that aren't transparent. So if you Google GitLab communication, you'll find a long list. I think it's over 17 items of things that aren't transparent, and that includes salaries, that includes M&A. It doesn't include fundraising, but it really depends on your market and how you're going with that. It was a stretch, and we had a fundraising Slack channel where we keep, kept people updated, but we knew we were An attractive company, and the market was good, so I think you, you have to make that decision, but it's certainly, that, that is a very hard thing to do, because as that, the subject in that channel said, it's going to be a roller coaster, and there's going to be lots of no's, but we only need one, yes.

AI assessment note: “we have the longest list of things that aren't transparent”

Q transparency, are there any limits to transparency? Are there any boundaries? Is it salaries? Is it, you know, I often say the startups never involve team in M&A discussions or progress because it's just, it's unhelpful and it's unproductive. Don't actually say about fundraising. It reduces morale if they know that it's dragging on. There is a limit to transparency. I, I always say, how do you feel about that?

A Because we're transparent by default, we have the longest list of things that aren't transparent. So if you Google GitLab communication, you'll find a long list. I think it's over 17 items of things that aren't transparent, and that includes salaries, that includes M&A. It doesn't include fundraising, but it really depends on your market and how you're going with that. It was a stretch, and we had a fundraising Slack channel where we keep, kept people updated, but we knew we were An attractive company, and the market was good, so I think you, you have to make that decision, but it's certainly, that, that is a very hard thing to do, because as that, the subject in that channel said, it's going to be a roller coaster, and there's going to be lots of no's, but we only need one, yes.

AI assessment note: “we have the longest list of things that aren't transparent”

Q Not at all, but I do want to kick off today with a little bit about you. So tell me, Sid, how did you make your way into the world of SaaS and come to found the rocket ship that is today GitLab?

A I actually tried to get into the world of SaaS and I got into the world of software instead. In 2012, I saw a project called GitLab and it was collaboration software for developers. And I thought that makes so much sense. I was a software developer at the time and everything I used was open source except the collaboration software I used. And I figured there'd be a market for that. So I checked out the project and it already had 300 people contributing to it in the first year. So it had an amazing community behind it. But everyone ran it self-hosted. I thought, well, SaaS is the future. So I'll start GitLab.com. So I sent an email over to the author of the software, Dimitri, who started the project a year earlier. And I said, look, I'm going to start GitLab.com. I hope you don't mind. I'm doing that without you. He said, no, totally cool. It's open source. Go ahead. And I'm glad you're making it more popular. Then a year later, I learned that not a lot of people were interested in the SaaS at that time. But a lot of the people that were using the self-hosted version had a lot of requests for new features. And because I was visible, they asked me, but I wasn't that experienced. At the same time, Dimitri tweeted out to the whole world, I want to work on GitLab full-time. So I sent him an email like, hey, let's make it happen. How much do you need? We agreed on a payment, and I we…

AI assessment note: “In 2012, I saw a project called GitLab and it was collaboration software”

Q the 3000 page doc you have, and I heard this from your investors in terms of how you are transparent around compensation grids, product roadmaps, especially. In terms of the product roadmap transparency, is that not a net negative for the business, allowing competitors to see your plans? How did you think about that, and how do you advise founders as to the benefits they should maybe embrace with it?

A Yeah, I think there's a bit of a negative, like sometimes our competitors know that we're going to release something and they try to kind of front run us by day or so. I also like to think that they spend a big amount of time on watching our roadmap and that's a time waste they have and we don't. But all in all, it's been a very positive thing for us because the most important thing about your roadmap is not that it's a secret, but that it's correct that you're making the stuff that customers want. We sometimes have developers starting at GitLab and they're like, Who is this person that's been giving me advice all the time about the feature I'm building? Because I couldn't find him in our team directory. And we're like, well, are you sure that person works at GitLab? And they found out it's just a user that cares a lot about that feature, and that sees that they're not building what they need, and they help, and they contribute, and they give different viewpoints and opinions. So I think having the roadmap out there allows our customers to not be surprised. It allows our customers to better influence the roadmap, and we end up building what Customers need at that moment the most, and that's the most important thing.

AI assessment note: “all in all, it's been a very positive thing for us”

Q of all, you know, a lot of people ask, well, how do you do it? Ask instead why? Because as I said, it was a very contrarian thing that you did many years ago. So Daronos, bluntly, it seems you're wired pretty differently with remote being the best solution inherently to you. What shaped this? Was it conviction? Was it personal experiences? Why did you always feel it was right?

A We started off as a remote company. Um, I had, I hired people, but well, the first person I hired was in, uh, I was in the Netherlands and the first person was Madden in Serbia. And then we hired Dimitri in Ukraine and it kept going like that. And then even if I hired Dutch people, they would come to my house and we would co-work for a few days and then they would just work from wherever they were. So it organically evolved like that. And then People were skeptical, so we said, look, if it, if it stops scaling, we'll stop doing it. But in fact, remote works better the bigger you are. Like, if you're seven people, it's probably better to be in a room together, if that's practical. If you're 1500 people, what's the, what's the advantage? You can't be in the same room anymore. You can hardly be in the same building. So remote scales a lot better, and because people were skeptical of it, We invested a lot in the things you need to do to be remote. Every company during the pandemic discovered, hey, we can work remote, but what they are not intentional about is facilitating informal communication, because that takes more time and effort. It takes a lot less time and effort and money than having an office building, but you still need to be very intentional about that.

AI assessment note: “So it organically evolved like that.”

Q In terms of kind of transitioning the styles there, we mentioned about the written culture. I would love, love to ask, what does that written culture mean to you? Because it is a big change in the style of leadership and how companies and orgs are run today. So how do you think about what a written culture means and the pros and cons of having such a strong one?

A So we have a strong written culture and it shows in our handbook of over 2000 pages where we detail how we work. Um, the, the enormous benefit is that there's less synchronous time needed. Like you're less likely to be stuck and need to ask something to someone before you can continue. I think one of the drawbacks of writing is that it can be time consuming, especially if something needs to happen fast and you don't know how much context the other person has. Because now you need to kind of write down everything the other person could possibly not know, and that takes a lot of time. If, if you have more time, you just send something short and they can ask a question. If you know the other person has the context, you can have a shorter text message like you would have with a partner, both in business and in personal life. So, um, I, I think there's a benefit to it, but if something is really important and has to happen really fast, and it includes a wide group where you don't, where not everyone has the context, I think synchronous communication is better.

AI assessment note: “one of the drawbacks of writing is that it can be time consuming”

Q Listen, I totally agree with you. Can I ask you, who are your mentors today? And if you have one or two big takeaways that you really think on from them?

A There's a, there's a ton of people. I think the, the most important people are, have been my, my CEO coaches and, and also the board members. Now, board members are not mentors per se. They're your boss, which is very different, but still there's an enormous amount of things you can learn. And for example, Godfrey Sullivan, our lead independent, he helps with the situational leadership, like varying my style. Um, I think with the CEO coaches, um, right now it's Marissa, and before it was John Hamm, and John Hamm, his most impactful statement was when our quarter was looking really, really bad. So this is years ago. We were gonna miss the quarter by 30%, and I thought, oh my goodness, I'm gonna get fired. I was like a deer in the headlights, and Uh, John said, look, first of all, you're not, you're not gonna get fired. Second of all, they know a startup is up and down, but they want you to completely understand the problem and have a plan on how to deal with it. And that sounds trite. That sounds so simple, but that was so useful. And for the next, I had two weeks until the board meeting, I learned everything about the problem and it was with, uh, our sales cycle and deals getting stuck and things like that. And I started off the board meeting with a half an hour presentation with everything that was wrong and everything we were going to do about it, and the only response was fr…

AI assessment note: “they want you to completely understand the problem and have a plan”

Q of all, you know, a lot of people ask, well, how do you do it? Ask instead why? Because as I said, it was a very contrarian thing that you did many years ago. So Daronos, bluntly, it seems you're wired pretty differently with remote being the best solution inherently to you. What shaped this? Was it conviction? Was it personal experiences? Why did you always feel it was right?

A We started off as a remote company. Um, I had, I hired people, but well, the first person I hired was in, uh, I was in the Netherlands and the first person was Madden in Serbia. And then we hired Dimitri in Ukraine and it kept going like that. And then even if I hired Dutch people, they would come to my house and we would co-work for a few days and then they would just work from wherever they were. So it organically evolved like that. And then People were skeptical, so we said, look, if it, if it stops scaling, we'll stop doing it. But in fact, remote works better the bigger you are. Like, if you're seven people, it's probably better to be in a room together, if that's practical. If you're 1500 people, what's the, what's the advantage? You can't be in the same room anymore. You can hardly be in the same building. So remote scales a lot better, and because people were skeptical of it, We invested a lot in the things you need to do to be remote. Every company during the pandemic discovered, hey, we can work remote, but what they are not intentional about is facilitating informal communication, because that takes more time and effort. It takes a lot less time and effort and money than having an office building, but you still need to be very intentional about that.

AI assessment note: “So it organically evolved like that. And then People were skeptical”

Q In terms of kind of transitioning the styles there, we mentioned about the written culture. I would love, love to ask, what does that written culture mean to you? Because it is a big change in the style of leadership and how companies and orgs are run today. So how do you think about what a written culture means and the pros and cons of having such a strong one?

A So we have a strong written culture and it shows in our handbook of over 2000 pages where we detail how we work. Um, the, the enormous benefit is that there's less synchronous time needed. Like you're less likely to be stuck and need to ask something to someone before you can continue. I think one of the drawbacks of writing is that it can be time consuming, especially if something needs to happen fast and you don't know how much context the other person has. Because now you need to kind of write down everything the other person could possibly not know, and that takes a lot of time. If, if you have more time, you just send something short and they can ask a question. If you know the other person has the context, you can have a shorter text message like you would have with a partner, both in business and in personal life. So, um, I, I think there's a benefit to it, but if something is really important and has to happen really fast, and it includes a wide group where you don't, where not everyone has the context, I think synchronous communication is better.

AI assessment note: “The enormous benefit is that there's less synchronous time needed.”

Q You mentioned also iteration there. Another commonality, and I know all of our friends who I spoke to said about your rate and desire for learning being unparalleled, and so if we, if we go to that, how do you think about getting as much feedback as possible from your team, customers, investors, and then how do you determine the feedback to accept versus reject?

A So getting feedback, I think most people are naturally inclined to give feedback. It's just that sometimes they see that the messenger, uh, is The messenger is not rewarded for giving that, so you gotta be very, very cautious of making sure you're open to feedback, thanking people for it, and making that a very normal thing, and never dinging someone for feedback. Like, one of the most horrible things ever said at GitLab was, how come that person has time to complain about this? Like, that is like blaming the messenger, and, uh, that, that is, Uh, not okay. Uh, and I think at GitLab we do a great job of that, and then Feedback doesn't have to be correct in order for you to welcome it. Like it, there's two phases. There's just being thankful that someone's giving feedback and then you decide what to, uh, what to accept. And you do that based on the frequency with which you hear something, the source you get it from, like our lead independent board member, Godfrey, I would take that more serious than someone on Twitter that I don't know. And also what's the specialty of the source? Is that person really good in XYZ that they're giving feedback about or not?

AI assessment note: “you do that based on the frequency with which you hear something, the source”

Q to ask in terms of, you know, we, we mentioned Dave earlier. He mentioned, ah, how important, ah, you, a role you've played in terms of mentoring some of his companies and working with companies that he's worked with. I'm intrigued. How do you think about the role of mentorship today as a leader? And I guess, what would you advise young people to say when it comes to mentors?

A Mentorship is super important. I've been helped by a ton of people in my career, and I, I really enjoy mentoring kind of both, uh, startup companies and, and, um, kind of promising people at GitLab. Um, I think what's really, what I see sometimes is that people reach out and ask whether you want to be their mentor. And I think that's, that's Unlikely to be a yes for me, but I think also from other people. I think you want to kind of, you want to start small, iterate maybe, um, you, you want to reach out and say, look, I got this problem. This is why it's super important for me to solve it. This is what I think about it. This is what I would do if I won't talk to you. This is why I think you're like the most qualified person in the world to, to help me with that. Could, could we help on a 10 minute call to have a back and forth? I think that's, you're much more likely to find your mentor that way than just a cold reach out.

AI assessment note: “you're much more likely to find your mentor that way than just a cold reach”

Q Listen, I totally agree with you. Can I ask you, who are your mentors today? And if you have one or two big takeaways that you really think on from them?

A There's a, there's a ton of people. I think the, the most important people are, have been my, my CEO coaches and, and also the board members. Now, board members are not mentors per se. They're your boss, which is very different, but still there's an enormous amount of things you can learn. And for example, Godfrey Sullivan, our lead independent, he helps with the situational leadership, like varying my style. Um, I think with the CEO coaches, um, right now it's Marissa, and before it was John Hamm, and John Hamm, his most impactful statement was when our quarter was looking really, really bad. So this is years ago. We were gonna miss the quarter by 30%, and I thought, oh my goodness, I'm gonna get fired. I was like a deer in the headlights, and Uh, John said, look, first of all, you're not, you're not gonna get fired. Second of all, they know a startup is up and down, but they want you to completely understand the problem and have a plan on how to deal with it. And that sounds trite. That sounds so simple, but that was so useful. And for the next, I had two weeks until the board meeting, I learned everything about the problem and it was with, uh, our sales cycle and deals getting stuck and things like that. And I started off the board meeting with a half an hour presentation with everything that was wrong and everything we were going to do about it, and the only response was fr…

AI assessment note: “Godfrey Sullivan, our lead independent, he helps with the situational leadership”

Q Not at all, but I do want to kick off today with a little bit about you. So tell me, Sid, how did you make your way into the world of SaaS and come to found the rocket ship that is today GitLab?

A I actually tried to get into the world of SaaS and I got into the world of software instead. In 2012, I saw a project called GitLab and it was collaboration software for developers. And I thought that makes so much sense. I was a software developer at the time and everything I used was open source except the collaboration software I used. And I figured there'd be a market for that. So I checked out the project and it already had 300 people contributing to it in the first year. So it had an amazing community behind it. But everyone ran it self-hosted. I thought, well, SaaS is the future. So I'll start GitLab.com. So I sent an email over to the author of the software, Dimitri, who started the project a year earlier. And I said, look, I'm going to start GitLab.com. I hope you don't mind. I'm doing that without you. He said, no, totally cool. It's open source. Go ahead. And I'm glad you're making it more popular. Then a year later, I learned that not a lot of people were interested in the SaaS at that time. But a lot of the people that were using the self-hosted version had a lot of requests for new features. And because I was visible, they asked me, but I wasn't that experienced. At the same time, Dimitri tweeted out to the whole world, I want to work on GitLab full-time. So I sent him an email like, hey, let's make it happen. How much do you need? We agreed on a payment, and I we…

AI assessment note: “In 2012, I saw a project called GitLab... I'll start GitLab.com.”

Q quickfire, which is my favorite, I have to say. Moving back to the unique element of the team and kind of onboarding new people, in terms of your lessons from building the remote team, is there anything that you know now that you wish you'd known at the beginning of building your remote team, and how would you advise a founder who's contemplating between building a remote team versus not?

A Yeah, I think it is much more doable to be all remote than I thought. I think being all remote is a lot easier than being hybrid. Where part of your people are co-located and part are not. And that's because you got to organize communication to a higher degree. A lot of the things that you should do anyway are more necessary to do earlier if you're remote. Good business practices like documentation and training. Also, you got to take care of organizing the social trust building. So at GitLab, we have a lot of different mechanisms in which we allow people to learn together, know each other outside of it like a transactional work setting. Examples are the coffee chats, travel stipends. We have a nine-monthly get-together, but also every day there's a breakout call where we just chat about things outside of work. Every day there's a group conversation where a department hasn't, like, asked me anything segment. So there's a lot of things in which you kind of have to facilitate the informal communication, and I think that's an important thing to consider if you're becoming all remote.

AI assessment note: “it is much more doable to be all remote than I thought.”

Q quickfire, which is my favorite, I have to say. Moving back to the unique element of the team and kind of onboarding new people, in terms of your lessons from building the remote team, is there anything that you know now that you wish you'd known at the beginning of building your remote team, and how would you advise a founder who's contemplating between building a remote team versus not?

A Yeah, I think it is much more doable to be all remote than I thought. I think being all remote is a lot easier than being hybrid. Where part of your people are co-located and part are not. And that's because you got to organize communication to a higher degree. A lot of the things that you should do anyway are more necessary to do earlier if you're remote. Good business practices like documentation and training. Also, you got to take care of organizing the social trust building. So at GitLab, we have a lot of different mechanisms in which we allow people to learn together, know each other outside of it like a transactional work setting. Examples are the coffee chats, travel stipends. We have a nine-monthly get-together, but also every day there's a breakout call where we just chat about things outside of work. Every day there's a group conversation where a department hasn't, like, asked me anything segment. So there's a lot of things in which you kind of have to facilitate the informal communication, and I think that's an important thing to consider if you're becoming all remote.

AI assessment note: “I think it is much more doable to be all remote than I thought.”

Q incredible, um, kind of remote guide that so many startups use as their centerpiece today, especially, uh, also now for kind of larger incumbents who are moving and transitioning towards remote work. And this was Darren again, so I have to give him credit. What do you think are one or two things in there that will require the most effort to implement for those wanting to make the transition?

A I think this informal communication is the most important thing. We've talked to a ton of companies and most of them spend more time on deciding when to get back to the office than how to make remote work while they're not in the office. Also, I think it's a pipe dream that we're going to go back to completely being in the office. Some people are going to be remote. So focus more time on making that work. When people say they long back to the office, they don't meet in the furniture. When companies open back their offices, less than 10% of the people go back. They are longing for that informal communication. It's very natural for your Zoom calls to start on time, to end on time. You need to be intentional about creating time and space to learn more about each other, to build trust. That's essential. And that's what people are longing for. And that's what has been missing in a lot of companies during the pandemic.

AI assessment note: “I think this informal communication is the most important thing.”

Q Dave at Google Ventures or GV beforehand, and he said, really dig in on this one because, you know, a lot of startups are thinking about the next 10 years. When you look towards the next 1020 years of scaling startups and org design, what's your view on the future of work in terms of kind of remote, partial, full, and how do you think about that? That's from Dave.

A I think the future of work, I see a lot of startups are, are being all remote. They don't even have an office. So that, that's gonna happen and that's gonna happen more and more often. Now the legacy companies who are gonna go full, like co-located, that's gonna work as well. We know that works from, from before the pandemic. And then there's hybrid. And I think there's a type of hybrid that works and a type of hybrid that doesn't work. The type of hybrid that works is you come into the office some days. And I think companies are going to find out that it should be the same day. So everyone's at the office at the same time. The hybrid that doesn't work is some people are at the office and some people are remote. We think the most talented people in those companies that work remote will leave for a company that's all remote because they want to be on the same level as everybody else. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “a type of hybrid that works and a type of hybrid that doesn't work”

Q You mentioned also iteration there. Another commonality, and I know all of our friends who I spoke to said about your rate and desire for learning being unparalleled, and so if we, if we go to that, how do you think about getting as much feedback as possible from your team, customers, investors, and then how do you determine the feedback to accept versus reject?

A So getting feedback, I think most people are naturally inclined to give feedback. It's just that sometimes they see that the messenger, uh, is The messenger is not rewarded for giving that, so you gotta be very, very cautious of making sure you're open to feedback, thanking people for it, and making that a very normal thing, and never dinging someone for feedback. Like, one of the most horrible things ever said at GitLab was, how come that person has time to complain about this? Like, that is like blaming the messenger, and, uh, that, that is, Uh, not okay. Uh, and I think at GitLab we do a great job of that, and then Feedback doesn't have to be correct in order for you to welcome it. Like it, there's two phases. There's just being thankful that someone's giving feedback and then you decide what to, uh, what to accept. And you do that based on the frequency with which you hear something, the source you get it from, like our lead independent board member, Godfrey, I would take that more serious than someone on Twitter that I don't know. And also what's the specialty of the source? Is that person really good in XYZ that they're giving feedback about or not?

AI assessment note: “you do that based on the frequency with which you hear something, the source”

Q CEO, and people will inherently just be a little bit more intimidated, especially if they're kind of lowering the company transparently. How do you make it a environment and culture, and a culture of, like, safety and security Where they can say, Sid, I didn't like the way that you actually said that, and it made me feel uncomfortable. How does one create that environment where they can say that?

A I think situations where you're giving feedback in a group setting are the most important because there people can see what happens. Um, also it's really important that people never get in trouble for their feedback. So I think in group settings, when someone has feedback, being thankful for it, and also, like, being humble about, sometimes you kind of know, like, this morning when I gave the feedback, hey, we should share the doc with Harry up front, I was just, I was just starting my day, I wasn't at my best, but that's no excuse for delivering that feedback in a way that wasn't pleasant and that wasn't constructive, so. I, I did a bit of damage control. I said, look, um, you did nothing wrong, but still that, that wasn't good. So some, sometimes, you know, and, um, if you criticize yourself from time to time, it's easier for other people to do the same.

AI assessment note: “if you criticize yourself from time to time, it's easier for other people”

Q to ask in terms of, you know, we, we mentioned Dave earlier. He mentioned, ah, how important, ah, you, a role you've played in terms of mentoring some of his companies and working with companies that he's worked with. I'm intrigued. How do you think about the role of mentorship today as a leader? And I guess, what would you advise young people to say when it comes to mentors?

A Mentorship is super important. I've been helped by a ton of people in my career, and I, I really enjoy mentoring kind of both, uh, startup companies and, and, um, kind of promising people at GitLab. Um, I think what's really, what I see sometimes is that people reach out and ask whether you want to be their mentor. And I think that's, that's Unlikely to be a yes for me, but I think also from other people. I think you want to kind of, you want to start small, iterate maybe, um, you, you want to reach out and say, look, I got this problem. This is why it's super important for me to solve it. This is what I think about it. This is what I would do if I won't talk to you. This is why I think you're like the most qualified person in the world to, to help me with that. Could, could we help on a 10 minute call to have a back and forth? I think that's, you're much more likely to find your mentor that way than just a cold reach out.

AI assessment note: “you're much more likely to find your mentor that way than just a cold reach out.”

Q a lot of your cap table told me how, um, rigorous and stringent you were around investor selection, which is always a great thing to be, um, but my question to you on the back of that was, when you think through the cap table that you've assembled, which is incredible, why did you choose the people you did? Like, how do you base your investor selection criteria for you?

A So this is now in our past, we're a public company, and so the last time we got to select was at our IPO. And look, you select firms with a good reputation that they're constructive, and then you select people. Frequently, they're, they're going to be your new board member, the lead investor in a round. So you like people who you could have a great board meeting with. And what I did, for example, in our B round, I kind of had Calling it a mock board meeting is too far, but I went through our strategy and kind of, um, waited for them to kind of wait it. Well, we discussed and asked them to add value and, and then what you get back, how that you select a person who, who can contribute the most.

AI assessment note: “you select firms with a good reputation that they're constructive, and then you select people.”

Q incredible, um, kind of remote guide that so many startups use as their centerpiece today, especially, uh, also now for kind of larger incumbents who are moving and transitioning towards remote work. And this was Darren again, so I have to give him credit. What do you think are one or two things in there that will require the most effort to implement for those wanting to make the transition?

A I think this informal communication is the most important thing. We've talked to a ton of companies and most of them spend more time on deciding when to get back to the office than how to make remote work while they're not in the office. Also, I think it's a pipe dream that we're going to go back to completely being in the office. Some people are going to be remote. So focus more time on making that work. When people say they long back to the office, they don't meet in the furniture. When companies open back their offices, less than 10% of the people go back. They are longing for that informal communication. It's very natural for your Zoom calls to start on time, to end on time. You need to be intentional about creating time and space to learn more about each other, to build trust. That's essential. And that's what people are longing for. And that's what has been missing in a lot of companies during the pandemic.

AI assessment note: “I think this informal communication is the most important thing.”

Q Dave at Google Ventures or GV beforehand, and he said, really dig in on this one because, you know, a lot of startups are thinking about the next 10 years. When you look towards the next 1020 years of scaling startups and org design, what's your view on the future of work in terms of kind of remote, partial, full, and how do you think about that? That's from Dave.

A I think the future of work, I see a lot of startups are, are being all remote. They don't even have an office. So that, that's gonna happen and that's gonna happen more and more often. Now the legacy companies who are gonna go full, like co-located, that's gonna work as well. We know that works from, from before the pandemic. And then there's hybrid. And I think there's a type of hybrid that works and a type of hybrid that doesn't work. The type of hybrid that works is you come into the office some days. And I think companies are going to find out that it should be the same day. So everyone's at the office at the same time. The hybrid that doesn't work is some people are at the office and some people are remote. We think the most talented people in those companies that work remote will leave for a company that's all remote because they want to be on the same level as everybody else. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “I think the type of hybrid that works is you come into the office some days.”

Q CEO, and people will inherently just be a little bit more intimidated, especially if they're kind of lowering the company transparently. How do you make it a environment and culture, and a culture of, like, safety and security Where they can say, Sid, I didn't like the way that you actually said that, and it made me feel uncomfortable. How does one create that environment where they can say that?

A I think situations where you're giving feedback in a group setting are the most important because there people can see what happens. Um, also it's really important that people never get in trouble for their feedback. So I think in group settings, when someone has feedback, being thankful for it, and also, like, being humble about, sometimes you kind of know, like, this morning when I gave the feedback, hey, we should share the doc with Harry up front, I was just, I was just starting my day, I wasn't at my best, but that's no excuse for delivering that feedback in a way that wasn't pleasant and that wasn't constructive, so. I, I did a bit of damage control. I said, look, um, you did nothing wrong, but still that, that wasn't good. So some, sometimes, you know, and, um, if you criticize yourself from time to time, it's easier for other people to do the same.

AI assessment note: “if you criticize yourself from time to time, it's easier for other people”

Q the CEO coaches, how do you work with them? You mentioned, you know, John there and Marissa. How do you work with them? How long do you stay with each one for? How do you advise founders and CEOs who are contemplating, do I get a CEO coach? Do I not get one? I've heard that they're valuable, but is it really for me? How do you think about that?

A If you're the CEO of a fast-grown company, I totally recommend it. I think you, the nice thing is you, you get the best possible CEO, CEO coach who will have you. Just like everything in all the relationships, you'll, you'll have to work for this one. So it's, it's, it's kind of a two-way recruiting process. Uh, so you find out via other people who, who, who the good coaches are. Uh, They all are busy. They will never have time. So you gotta, you gotta make it interesting to them to take you on as a coachee. So you gotta convince them that you're a great person at a great and a promising company. And then typically, I think a few years, it, uh, you stay with them. It depends on what stage your company is at. It's important that the, the coach has seen that stage of company before. And I think after you grow a coach, you, you, you move on to the next one. Also, there's your, there's, there's kind of, they're sharing their life knowledge. And at, at some point you, you kind of, you've learned a lot of what, what you're gonna learn from them.

AI assessment note: “If you're the CEO of a fast-grown company, I totally recommend it.”

Q the 3000 page doc you have, and I heard this from your investors in terms of how you are transparent around compensation grids, product roadmaps, especially. In terms of the product roadmap transparency, is that not a net negative for the business, allowing competitors to see your plans? How did you think about that, and how do you advise founders as to the benefits they should maybe embrace with it?

A Yeah, I think there's a bit of a negative, like sometimes our competitors know that we're going to release something and they try to kind of front run us by day or so. I also like to think that they spend a big amount of time on watching our roadmap and that's a time waste they have and we don't. But all in all, it's been a very positive thing for us because the most important thing about your roadmap is not that it's a secret, but that it's correct that you're making the stuff that customers want. We sometimes have developers starting at GitLab and they're like, Who is this person that's been giving me advice all the time about the feature I'm building? Because I couldn't find him in our team directory. And we're like, well, are you sure that person works at GitLab? And they found out it's just a user that cares a lot about that feature, and that sees that they're not building what they need, and they help, and they contribute, and they give different viewpoints and opinions. So I think having the roadmap out there allows our customers to not be surprised. It allows our customers to better influence the roadmap, and we end up building what Customers need at that moment the most, and that's the most important thing.

AI assessment note: “all in all, it's been a very positive thing for us because”

Q a lot of your cap table told me how, um, rigorous and stringent you were around investor selection, which is always a great thing to be, um, but my question to you on the back of that was, when you think through the cap table that you've assembled, which is incredible, why did you choose the people you did? Like, how do you base your investor selection criteria for you?

A So this is now in our past, we're a public company, and so the last time we got to select was at our IPO. And look, you select firms with a good reputation that they're constructive, and then you select people. Frequently, they're, they're going to be your new board member, the lead investor in a round. So you like people who you could have a great board meeting with. And what I did, for example, in our B round, I kind of had Calling it a mock board meeting is too far, but I went through our strategy and kind of, um, waited for them to kind of wait it. Well, we discussed and asked them to add value and, and then what you get back, how that you select a person who, who can contribute the most.

AI assessment note: “select firms with a good reputation that they're constructive, and then you select people”

Q Not at all, but so much has happened. But I, I do want to start, and for those that missed our last episode, you know, GitLab today, public company, Incredible success story. Love to just provide some context and go back to the beginning. What was that founding moment and how did it all start in a very succinct two to three minutes?

A Yeah, it started when I saw, uh, GitLab, which was created by my co-founder, Dimitri. Um, he started it because he wanted to be, have a better way of collaborating at work. And he thought it made so much sense to make that open source. And I thought so too. So GitHub is a DevOps platform, which means you can do anything from planning what you're going to build software wise to building it, testing it, making it secure, rolling it out, monitoring it and improving it. And he thought that made so much sense to collaborate. And in the first year, 300 people join. Today we have hundreds of people joining every month to make it better. GitLab is being used by millions of people. This deserves more than just an open source project where everyone is just working for the love of it. This needs full-time people, and today GitLab is over 1500 people.

AI assessment note: “it started when I saw, uh, GitLab, which was created by my co-founder, Dimitri.”

Q the CEO coaches, how do you work with them? You mentioned, you know, John there and Marissa. How do you work with them? How long do you stay with each one for? How do you advise founders and CEOs who are contemplating, do I get a CEO coach? Do I not get one? I've heard that they're valuable, but is it really for me? How do you think about that?

A If you're the CEO of a fast-grown company, I totally recommend it. I think you, the nice thing is you, you get the best possible CEO, CEO coach who will have you. Just like everything in all the relationships, you'll, you'll have to work for this one. So it's, it's, it's kind of a two-way recruiting process. Uh, so you find out via other people who, who, who the good coaches are. Uh, They all are busy. They will never have time. So you gotta, you gotta make it interesting to them to take you on as a coachee. So you gotta convince them that you're a great person at a great and a promising company. And then typically, I think a few years, it, uh, you stay with them. It depends on what stage your company is at. It's important that the, the coach has seen that stage of company before. And I think after you grow a coach, you, you, you move on to the next one. Also, there's your, there's, there's kind of, they're sharing their life knowledge. And at, at some point you, you kind of, you've learned a lot of what, what you're gonna learn from them.

AI assessment note: “If you're the CEO of a fast-grown company, I totally recommend it.”

Q your advice here where it's exactly the same as you. I, I just care intensely about my business. Like you do yours. And if I feel like someone is not helping me get to where we should be, I get very angry, um, especially if it's born out of laziness or lack of care. How do you temper your emotion as a leader? Because actually, it's not helpful getting angry.

A It's, it's hard. And what we try to do at GitLab, which is super hard, but like, don't question people's intentions. So I agree that some people are, have a harder time motivating themselves, but I think laziness is almost a shortcut. That's, that's too easy. Like what's going on in their life. And that might not be, that might not be an excuse to do it, but. I think most of the times when I'm lazy, it's because I have two of a high bar for the output and the end result, and I procrastinate and try not to do it. Um, so maybe it's something like that. Um, we're all humans. We all, like, I, I, I might, I might be, yeah, I'm trying to be as level headed as I can, and I think I do a good job, but that, that doesn't mean you're, you're always at your best and nobody is. And I think it's kind of fun to work with humans instead of robots, and to vary your style. One of the things I like most is the situational leadership theory and strategy, where you vary your style based on what happens. I've made a blog post in November with 19 Factors I can consider and I sometimes do consider when, when to delegate something. And that's, that's kind of the name of the game. Like the who's on the other side and what should, how should you vary your style? And I think that makes being a leader more interesting and, and it's, I'm never going to master it, but I'm, I'm, it's fun getting better at it.

AI assessment note: “what we try to do at GitLab... don't question people's intentions”