GitLab Learning & Development, 3 Nov 2020

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From YouTube: FY21-Q4 L&D Newsletter - Learn from Leadership - Sid Sijbrandij

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For the full newsletter, see: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/learning-and-development/newsletter/FY21-Q4

A

I said thanks for joining us, for our first uh learn from leadership interview for our lnd newsletter. If you could just kick off by introducing yourself, so just your name, your rolex gitlab, and what your current home location is.

B

Thanks for having me, my name is sidsi brandy, I'm the ceo and co-founder at git lab and I live in san francisco. California,.

A

What has your career journey looked like to date?.

B

I uh going back to education, I went to a good high school in the netherlands. I was good at economics and physics. I did one year of applied physics at university and then went into management science, which is like half mba half engineering studies.

B

um I graduated at procter and gamble. I did an internship after graduating at ibm and then I worked for a submarine private recreational submarine company for five years became a consultant from group creating ruby on rails websites.

B

I had another startup.

B

And went back to consulting and start a kit line.

A

Awesome thanks and you've been the ceo here at get lab since you joined ever since it started.

B

Since I started the company in 2015 2012 uh with with dimitri starting the open source project in 2011.,.

A

Awesome, what's the biggest career risk you've ever taken.

B

I think it was the submarines.

B

I had a job offer from ibm on the table and I asked the investor behind the screen company to hire me and he was reluctantly agreeing and asked me for a salary proposal and I said something extremely reasonable and he said half of that.

B

I later asked like why he didn't why he said that and it was because he was still calculating with numbers that were 15 years older. So by that time, like inflation, a market changed those numbers. So I started to work at something I couldn't afford to house myself off that. So I moved impact with my parents in there in the attic to uh to be able to afford to work for the submarine company.

A

What's the best book you've read this year.

B

Oh this year I have not done a ton of reading, so I find that hard too hard to say I think best book ever is high output management and I'm now reading sapiens, which is super fun so far,.

A

What is your preferred learning style? So some examples are visual. You prefer using pictures images auditory. You prefer sound and music kinesthetic. You prefer using your body and then reading. Writing you prefer using words.

B

Yeah reading and writing, but I'm with like a clear hierarchy in the ideas.

A

And then why do you think learning is important.

B

Because it's fun because it will make you better at your current job and because it will enable you to get another job.

A

Yeah awesome and what's one thing you wish you would have learned sooner in your.

B

Career um cop, many things, um some of the things that come to mind is like the power of incentives. I think warren buffett says that, or maybe his partner says that you keep underestimating that power.

B

I think the importance of setting the right target choosing the right metric.

B

And the importance of selling, basically as a ceo, you're selling uh team members, you're selling board members you're selling customers you're selling investors selling, is a useful skill. Whatever you do, whether you be our ceo or not in almost every job selling, is a super power to have.

A

Who is your role model and why or you can have multiple.

B

Yeah, I think I'm not gonna uh name a person, although probably and there's some guesses that can be made based on the companies, I will name.

B

No no person is perfect, as I think a role model is like you start idolizing, a certain person and there's pros and cons, and everyone has pros and cons, so I'd rather imitate certain behavior that you can admire and I admire how amazon, as a business have been able to go to adjacent businesses most famously aws.

B

This is very, very rare to be able to pull that off and very amazing to see, and I admire the ability of spacex to iterate in hardware. Integration is something we do at gitlab. It's relatively easy in software being able to do that with rockets that you have to produce and produce them really quickly and iterate on the design. Very quickly is really amazing.

A

Could you name a person or people who have had a tremendous impact on you as a leader might be someone who's been a mentor to you and then why and how has this person or people impacted your life.

B

Yeah, I think um the coaches I've had at gitlab uh very impactful, there's just obviously there's the list of people who shape. You is too long to mention in this call. But for the purposes of this call, let's give it to coaches git lab.

B

I see our first board member bruce armstrong as kind of the original coach. The coach before I even had a coach and then john hamm was my coach for a long time and now dan levin.

A

What are you doing to ensure that you continue to grow and develop as a leader today.

B

Yeah we mentioned the coach and there's the board performance review, which is really good. It gives me a lot of like concrete things to improve. um I read books sometimes recommended by board members gotcha just handed me a book about situational leadership which situation management, which I'll read I'm curious. I keep just reading a lot. I keep asking a lot. I kind of use the ceo's channel and slack to ask like hey. Why is this the way it is?

B

I don't understand it's kind of fun that you have a ton of people in there that can advise um and I try to keep talking with entrepreneurs. There's a video of me on sunday talking with orderly and doing a mock, yc interview.

A

Is there anything else you want to share about leadership at gitlab.

B

Yeah, um I advise everyone to check out the leadership page in our handbook with a lot of time and effort and thinking in the concepts that are on that page and then I think sometimes people want to go directly to being mentored, but I I'd advise people to plan coffee chat with leaders at getlab and that mentorship might develop organically from that so see, coffee chances, the way to get a mentor or not, but at least grow and get connected.

A

Awesome great advice- and that was the last question, so I just want to say thank you for being our first interviewee on our learn from leadership section of our lnd newsletter.

B

Yeah thanks for having me and thanks for making this newsletter appreciate, it.

A