Sid Sijbrandij
Co-founder & Executive Chair, GitLab Inc.. On 3 shows, 5 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestor@sytses ↗LinkedIn ↗sytse.com ↗
Sijbrandij co-founded GitLab in 2012, pioneering an all-remote workforce and open-core model to take the DevSecOps platform public on Nasdaq in 2021 before transitioning from CEO to Executive Chair in 2024. Beyond GitLab, he established Open Core Ventures to back open-source founders and launched the AI coding platform Kilo Code.
3shows
5appearances
99statements
30resolved
25supported
3contradicted
83%fully supported
25said about them ↓ Everything Sid Sijbrandij said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
GitLab's 270 fully remote employees work across 270 distinct locations
“We have 270 people working from 270 locations.”
Sid Sijbrandij: Time zones are the biggest obstacle to remote work
“The hardest thing about remote is time zones, and to overcome time zones, you need to work asynchronously, but that's very, very hard.”
Sid Sijbrandij: GitLab lists over 17 transparency exceptions, including salaries and M&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 inc…”
Sid Sijbrandij: Leaders should separate feedback reception from feedback evaluation
“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 what to accept.”
Sid Sijbrandij: Synchronous communication is best for urgent, broad group projects
“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.”
Sid Sijbrandij: Board members are a founder's boss, not their mentors
“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.”
Sid Sijbrandij: GitLab limits live board meeting presentations to two minutes
“Now at GitLab, we've taken that to a bit of an extreme where we send video clips of us presenting the slide deck up front, and we do, if we do presentations, it's like two minutes.”
Sid Sijbrandij: Founders must specify three help requests before board meetings
“Now, what's super important is that before the board meeting, you say, these are the three things I would really love feedback on. I could use help on. Make, tell them what to help you with.”
Sid Sijbrandij: Matrix organizational structures make executive life difficult
“You can structure your company according to functions, and then cross-functional things will be hard. You can structure your company across projects, and then career development will be hard. Or you can have a matrix organization, and then your whole life will…”
Sid Sijbrandij: Future cities will create dedicated recruiting departments to attract talent
“I think there will be more cities. They will be more differentiated and opinionated, and they will be more welcoming. They will have a recruiting department.”
Sijbrandij: Majority of GitLab-built features will be open source
“We will actively contribute to the open source code with the majority of features built by GitLab Inc. Being open source.”
Sijbrandij: Consulting margins are too low to reinvest into software products
“We tried consultancy, but consultancy doesn't let you have high margins. Those high margins are needed for you to be able to invest back into the product, to pay for work that is unpaid otherwise.”
Sijbrandij: Up to one-third of GitLab's core team are company employees
“Up to a third of the core team are people that are also GitLab Inc. Team members, with the rest being part of the wider community contributions.”
Sijbrandij: Making open-source features proprietary quickly destroys community goodwill
“For example, the quick, the quickest way to lose goodwill is to make an open source feature proprietary.”
Sijbrandij: GitLab achieved 58% YoY revenue growth and 97% retention
“Revenue growth is 58% year over year, and our dollar-based growth retention is 97%.”
GitLab's S-1 filing reported net retention exceeding 150%
“And in our S-one filing, we talked about
Our net retention. It's the money that customers spent with us, and it's grown more than a 150%, which means that if a cohort of customers is spending a hundred dollars with you last year, they're now spending a 150 dol…”
GitLab.com revenue is more than doubling year-over-year
“We also see enormous growth of GitLab.com. It's more than doubling in revenue year over year”
GitLab raised $268M at a $2.75B post-money valuation
“We raised two hundred sixty eight million dollars in our last round at a post valuation of two dot seven five billion.”
GitLab priced its secondary at the preferred round price
“The price was the same as the Preferred price of the round.”
Enterprise deals account for 72% of GitLab's ARR
“The enterprise market is 72% of our ARR, and those are the bigger deals.”
GitLab net expansion is tracking well north of 150%
“Net expansion has been absolutely amazing and it's way north of a 150% and a 150% would already be kind of best in class if you look at public companies.”
GitLab expects net retention to drop as initial deals grow larger
“We expect the number to come down. So I'm not going to give the number today because we're doing a better and better job at landing a bigger initial deal.”
The other half of the tape: Sid Sijbrandij's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 23 times in 13 episodes across the shows. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 12Mike Preuss 4Tristan Handy 2Harry Stebbings 2Tom Hulme 1Matt Mullenweg 1Jason Lemkin 1
Statements about Sid Sijbrandij, by other people (2)
Latka: GitLab raised $100M one month after denying fundraising
“And sure enough, a month after I do the interview, you know, GitLab raised a hundred million dollars.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Top Founders 17
20VC 6
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 10 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- DevOps Tool Fig Raised $2.2m in 2020, Now Approaching 100k MAU's, Whats Next?
- Tristan Handy: Why The CEO Should Make As Few Decisions As Possible | 20VC #937 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Full Stack Permissions as a Service Launches, $6m in Fresh Capital to Buy Time
- This Developer Tool Doubled To $240k ARR And Raised at a $14m Post Money Valuation
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2020 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Ashton Kutcher on Early Lessons From Investing in Airbnb and Spotify, Why VC Ownership Requirements Are Becoming More and More Egregious & What Being Good At Product Truly Means
- Trainual Hits $3m ARR, 3x YoY Helping 2500 Customers Document Key Processes
- 1667 Top Tech Journalist Predicts We'll All Be Unemployed, Blockchain Takeover, Less Taxes!
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 4 mentions in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Sid's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-founder & Executive Chair, GitLab Inc. | 2 | 46 | 73% 11/15 | full record on 20VC → |
| TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Co-founder & Executive Chair, GitLab Inc. | 2 | 38 | 89% 8/9 | full record on Top Founders → |
 SAASTRLEDGER | Co-founder & Executive Chair, GitLab Inc. | 1 | 15 | 100% 6/6 | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |