►
From YouTube: Sam Endacott (Firstminute Capital) interviewing Sid Sijbrandij, GitLab co-founder and CEO
Description
Sam Endacott (Firstminute Capital) interviewing Sid Sijbrandij, GitLab co-founder and CEO
Topics include:
➞ Starting GitLab as an all-remote company, and GitLab's early days
➞ Where software and DevOps is headed
➞ Sid's interests outside of software
➞ Tips for founders and leaders
➞ What's needed to thrive as a remote team
➞ The importance of mentors
➞ Sid's first line of code and computer
###
➞ Learn more about GitLab: https://about.gitlab.com/
➞ Learn more about Firstminute Capital: https://www.firstminute.capital/
➞ All of GitLab's guide to remote work: http://allremote.info/
➞ GitLab's values and sub-values: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/
A
Hi
I'm
here
with
Sam
Sam,
is
an
amazing
investor
from
first
minute
capital
and
he
he
is
investing
a
ton
of
open
source
companies
and
def
focused
companies,
and
he
had
a
few
questions
so
and
he
allowed
us
to
broadcast
this.
That's
why
it's
on
YouTube
Sam
so
nice
for
you
to
reach
out
and
thanks
for
letting
us
stream.
This.
B
Wilson,
thanks
for
thanks
for
taking
the
cool
and
and
helping
set
this
up
and
really
excited
to
be
here
and
but
I
I
can
just
jump
right
in
said.
If,
if
that
make
sense,
please
do
awesome
and
they
said
I'd
love
to
ask
my
first
question
and
is
really
you
know
in
in
2020.
You
know
you
you're
running,
get
laughs,
you
start
a
business.
B
You
know
over
five
years
ago
and
and
I
guess
you're
you're
on
the
verge
of
of
exiting
this
business
and
taking
a
public
right
and
I've
been
reading,
but
would
love
to
understand
sort
of
retrospectively?
What
would
you
have
done
differently
if
you
could
go
back
in
time
to
the
beginning
and
build
company
again
yeah.
A
By
the
way
we
we
see
taking
the
pump
of
the
public
as
a
liquidity
event,
but
not
an
exit.
I
hope
to
be
with
your
lab
for
a
longer
time
and
I'd
do
differently.
I
I
would
have
tried
to
get
into
a
Combinator
earlier
might
have
failed,
but
it
never
hurts
to
try.
It's
actually
a
good
signal.
If
you
try
to
get
in
batch
after
batch,
so
they
can
see
your
progress
I
think
we
always
struggle
a
bit
with
get
loud.
Calm
like
it's.
A
It's
always
not
been
the
performance
that
we
want
so
today
still
we're
improving
the
performance
there.
On
the
other
hand,
it's
also
not
as
profitable
as
we
want.
So
maybe,
if
we
invested
more,
it
would
have
gone
even
more
profitable,
I'm
more
popular
and
it's
not
as
profitable
as
we
need
so
that
that
would
have
been
a
problem
for
the
company,
so
yeah
and
there's
there's
so
many
mistakes
like
every
day
I
make
more
mistakes
than
than
anybody
else
is
get
lab,
but
I
got
it.
I.
Think.
A
What
you
regret
in
in
hindsight
is:
is
it
in
the
end?
It's
a
people
business
at
any
time
and
anytime
you
hurt
people,
that's
that's.
That's
that's
not
great
I
think
sometimes,
especially
now,
like
your
coz
of
a
megaphone.
So
if
you
call
out
the
work
of
an
individual
contributor
and
you
could
decide
it
in
front
of
everyone
and
sometimes
that
happens
and
you're
like
I
shouldn't-
have
done
that.
B
A
So
the
transparency
was
super
intentional.
We
were
building
a
company
after
the
open
source
projects
already
took
off
and
there's
a
lot
of
concern
when
a
company
kind
of
becomes
such
an
important
player
in
the
open
source
project.
So
people
were
worried
and
best
way
to
alleviate
worry.
If
you
don't
have
any
bad
intentions
is
to
make
sure
that
people
know
what's
going
on.
So
that's
where
transparency
came
from
I
think
we
it
helped
with
that.
But
the
more
important
thing
was.
A
It
really
helped
to
make
sure
we're
aligned
as
a
company
and
that
the
people
that
joined
the
company
kind
of
opted
in
to
like
how
we
have
we
been
how
we
burned
the
companies,
not
necessarily
that
are
worse
than
other
companies.
That
I
think
it's
is
really
important,
that
that
there's
a
lot
of
cohesion
so
using
it
as
a
way
for
people
to
opt
in
was
amazing
and
then
remote.
We
never
set
out
to
build
a
remote
company.
It's
just
the
beginning.
I
was
in
the
Netherlands.
A
Dmitry
was
in
the
Ukraine,
and
my
name
was
in
Serbia
so
natural
to
work
remote
and
then
after
I
culminate.
It
was
three
months
in
the
house
in
Mountain
View
and
then
they
said,
look
remote
tends
to
not
scale
so
get
an
office
for
the
non-engineering
stuff
so
makes
total
sense.
Let's
do
that,
but
people
kind
of
stopped
showing
up,
and
one
of
the
reasons
was
that
it
was
very
easy
to
get
all
the
information
via
kind
of
the
more
official
channels.
B
It
that's
very
hopeful
and
and
to
all
the
founders
today
who,
through
a
building
remote
first
companies
what
would
be
or
sort
of
one
piece
of
advice
to
them.
Is
there
something
that
that's
sort
of
a
North
Star
to
you,
as
you
built
that
out
over
time,
that
that
enables
you
to
do
that
so
successfully
and
have
you
seen
other
companies
try
to
do
it
fail
and
not
be
able
to
build
that
that
strong
culture,
yeah.
A
I'd
say:
build
a
old
remote
company
instead
of
a
remote
first
fund,
the
super
heart
I
have
a
hybrid
company,
try
to
learn
from
us
download
the
remote
eBook
over
50
pages,
look
at
our
handbook
or
over
5,000
pages.
Actually,
the
CEO
shadow
of
this
week
is
Darrin
Murph,
so
I
already
said:
two
things
right
was
allowed
only
one
so
I'll
hand
the
word
to
him,
so
he
can
add
one
more.
C
Yeah,
so
we
have
the
world's
greatest
comprehensive
library
and
all
things
remote,
so
you're
welcome
to
to
go
there
and
learn
from
us
all
remote
info.
The
other
thing
is
to
just
be
intentional
about
everything
things
that
you
generally
can
leave
to
serendipity
and
fate
things
like
informal
communication,
how
interpersonal
relationships
are
built
at
a
co-located
company.
If
you
don't
put
intentionality
behind
that,
those
interactions
will
never
happen.
You
have
to
create
slack
channels
about
topics
that
people
want
to
converse
about.
You
have
to
create
virtual
coffee,
chats
and
virtual
conference
rooms.
C
You
have
to
do
things
like
talent,
shows
and
show-and-tell.
You
have
to
create
an
environment
where
people
can
connect,
and
you
have
to
be
very,
very
intentional
about
defining
your
culture
and
a
co-located
space.
Culture
can
be
things
like
the
office
decor
or
the
charisma
or
persona
of
people
in
the
room
and
that's
dangerous,
because
your
culture
can
oscillate
depending
on
economic
conditions
or
who's
there
and
who's,
not
in
an
all
remote
company.
You
have
to
write
it
down
and
for
us,
that's
writing
down
our
values
and
not
just
writing
down
the
core
values.
C
But
if
you
look
at
the
gate,
lab
values,
page
you'll
find
thousands
of
words
underneath
each
value
that
act
as
substantiate
errs
for
how
do
you
live
this
value
out?
How
do
you
exemplify
this
value?
What
does
this
value
being
lived
out?
Look
like
in
an
all
remote
setting
where
no
one
is
in
the
same
physical
location,
so
you
just
have
to
define
those
things
and,
more
definition,
more
discipline.
More
articulation
will
make
any
company
better.
No
matter
where
you
fall
on
the
spectrum
of
remote.
C
B
People
have
sort
of
shifted
the
way
they
think
about
commercializing,
open
source
software
and
for
all
those
those
developers
who
are
building
communities
right
now.
What
would
your
advice
to
be
to
them,
as
they
start
to
think
about
moving
away
from
a
community
purely
a
community
sort
of
first
approach
towards
building
a
commercial
and
sustainable
business?
And
what
are
the
key
things
to
think
about
that?
Yeah.
A
The
hardest
thing
is
like:
what
do
you
charge
money
for
we
did
it
in
if
our
buyer
based
open
core
model
took
us
a
couple
of
years
to
figure
that
out,
but
the
gist
of
it
is
we
ask
money
for
certain
features
that
appeal
more
to
managers
and
leaders
in
the
company
features
that
are
aimed
at
individual
contributors
are
free
and
open
source?
It's
how
we
did
it.
We
think
that's
working
really
well
for
us
and
we
have
a
lot
of
literature.
If
you,
google,
biobased
open
core,
that's.
B
Very
helpful
and-
and
my
next
question
is
really
around
building
an
open
source,
a
commercial
business
and
around
an
open
source
project
that
that
you
have
nurtured
and
built
over
time,
where
you're,
a
major
contributor
from
the
beginning
versus
building
a
commercial
business
on
a
pre-existing
open
source
project
and
was
wondering
what
what
your
views
were
on
on
that.
And
you
see
risks
to
to
building
something.
On
top
of
the
pre-existing
community.
Yeah.
A
So
it
was
a
pre-existing
community.
I
saw
a
good
lab
only
when
it
was
a
year
old
and
already
300
people
contributed
to
that
and
I
think
in
the
beginning,
be
humble
and
transparent,
and,
for
example,
when
we
announced
that
we
were
gonna
have
a
commercial
edition
of
gate
lab
someone
said
well,
why
don't
you
make
that
open
source
as
well?
The
commercial
edition
have
for
what
a
ridiculous
proposal,
but
I
kept
that
to
myself
and
I
just
on
the
internet.
I
asked
like
ok.
A
Do
you
know
of
any
examples
of
people
doing
this,
and
he
said
yes
WordPress.
Does
it
this
way
for
plugins?
That's
like
wow
I
didn't
know.
Yet
so
I
looked
at
it,
it's
true.
They
do
it.
I'm
like
well
good
suggestion.
We're
gonna,
try
that
so
for
we
license
it
open
source
as
well,
and
it
alleviated
a
lot
of
concerns
to
community
had
about
fork
and
a
6
months
in
the
community
saw
a
paid
open
source.
A
The
open
source,
open
source
version
had
a
non-commercial
version,
was
still
being
updated
and
they
were
super
happy
and
they
alleviated
a
ton
of
their
worries
and
we
had
super
confused
customers
about
which
version
was
proprietary
for
which
is
open
source.
So
six
months-
and
we
said,
look
this
confusion
is
not
worth
it.
We're
gonna
make
it
proprietary,
we
need
a
straight
story,
but
by
that
time
we
had
addressed
the
concerns,
and
that's
just
being
humble,
not
saying
hey.
This
doesn't
make
sense,
which
is
saying:
hey
is.
Is
there
an
example?
A
B
A
A
B
Go
for
ten
more
minutes,
we
got
10
more
minutes,
Oh
fantastic.
My
next
question
was
really
around
around
what
what
you're
excited
about
right
now,
both
in
both
I
guess
in
in
the
open
source
world
and
the
developer
world,
but
but
also
perhaps
away
from
that.
What
other
projects
excite
you?
What
do
you
think
are
some
of
the
biggest
opportunities
right
now
for,
for
you
know,
budding
entrepreneurs,
successful
entrepreneurs
to
build
and
go
after
yeah.
A
Looking
it's
all
for
development,
I
still
super
excited
about
get
lap
and
get
lap.
You
can
see
it
is
one
product,
it's
really
10
different
products
and
maybe
maybe
even
50
different
products,
so
we're
still
adding
a
ton,
but
also
we
have
a
ton
of
features
in
get
lab
that
aren't
heavily
used
yet
so
it's
basically
they're
on
the
verge
of
breaking
through
and
that's
super
exciting,
like
we
share
a
common
interest
in
kind
of
distributed
messaging
space,
you're,
an
investor
in
matrix,
I
understood.
That's
a
super
cool
project
matrix
and
riot
I'm.
A
A
big
fan
of
of
the
work
they're
doing
making
making
messaging
federated
like
email
is
today
outside
of
kind
of
core
software.
I'm
really
intrigued
by
the
new
cities.
Movement,
especially
in
Africa,
will
turn
need
a
ton
of
new
cities
as
the
population
grows
and
rapidly
urbanizing
and
I
mean.
There's.
Cities
are
responsible
for
some
of
the
services
that
our
increasing
cost,
the
most
like
housing,
health
care
and
education
and
I
think
there's
a
big
lever
there.
If
you
can
provide
those
services
with
high
quality
of
the
affordable
price,
interesting.
B
That's
awesome
and
if
you
I
guess
I'd
love
to
touch
a
little
bit
about
on
yourself
as
an
operator
and
a
leader,
and
you
know
something
that
that
that
we've
discussed
a
lot
with
our
first.
My
first
minute
interview
series
and
to
some
of
these
leaders
in
different
industries
is,
is:
did
you
have
any
mentors
and,
as
you
sort
of
built
the
company,
were
there
people
you
leant
on
whether
they
were
your
investors
or
whether
they
were
external
parties
who
weren't
associated
with
gitlab?
And
how
did
you?
How
did
you?
B
A
Yeah,
look
if
mentors
all
along
the
way,
I
think
YC
was
amazing.
Kevin
Henkes
our
been
a
big
influence.
Our
peers
in
Y
Combinator
also
learned
a
lot
from
them.
Then
our
investors,
especially
the
a.m.
be
like
booster
Armstrong,
lil
Jeff
and
my
CEO
coaches,
John
Hamm,
and
now
a
10
11.
So
but
there's
just
there's
so
many
people
like
I've
gotten
advice
from
hundreds
and
hundreds
of
people
I.
Think
one
of
the
great
things
about
Silicon
Valley
is
that
people
always
are
willing
to
help
new
people,
learn
and
I.
Think
that's!
A
B
A
B
That's
that's
very
helpful.
Okay,
that's
great
and
I
wanted
to
we
kind
of
zigzag,
but
I
I
thought
I
wanted
to
go
back
to
the
beginning,
I,
guess
and,
and
ask
you
a
little
bit
about
you
know
how
you
got
into
computing,
how
you
got
into
software
development.
You
know
what
was
your
first
computer?
Do
you
remember
the
first
time
you
you
were
given
or
you
bought
your
first
computer?
Do
you
remember
the
time
you?
You
wrote
your
first
line
of
code,
we'd
love
to
would
love
to
understand
that
for
the
backstory
yeah.
A
I
wanted
a
computer
when
I
was
young,
but
my
parents
wouldn't
buy
it
for
me.
So
I
started
complete
I
started
programming,
but
I
just
brought
it
down.
I
just
broke
pen
and
paper
I
tried
to
he
said
at
Scott
later,
but
it
had
three
bucks
per
line
of
code,
so
it
wasn't
very
good.
Apparently
you
need
to
feedback
to
get
better
at
it.
First,
computer
was
attendee
from
my
uncle
took
me
a
while
to
figure
out
how
to
turn
it
on.
A
A
386
Intel
DX,
48
megabytes
of
RAM
I
was
amazing
and
I
didn't
get
into
programming
until
later
in
life,
I've
always
thought
it
was
a
bit
tedious
and
then
I
saw
the
Ruby
programming
language
with
Rails
framework.
I
thought
that
was
beautiful,
so
I
learned
how
to
program
only
in
2003
separately,
I
mean
I
hope
that
answers
the
question.
B
That's
very
cool,
no,
no!
That's
very
interesting
I'm
and
then
sort
of
fast-forwarding
a
little
bit
to
the
for
the
early
days
of
of
gitlab,
I!
Guess,
and
you
you
too
about
how
how
you
came
across
the
pre-existing
open-source
community.
How
did
that
happen?
How
did
you,
how
did
you
come
across
this
yeah.
A
Obviously
the
future.
So
let's
do
that
and
it
wasn't
upvoted
so
I
went
downstairs,
start
baking
pancakes
and
then
check
my
phone
one
last
time
and
there
was
on
the
home
page.
So
my
wife
ended
up
finishing
the
pancakes
and
brought
them
to
me.
Visa
I
spent
hours,
answering
questions
and
learning
about
the
space
and
by
the
end
of
day
that
evening
we
had
300
signups
awesome.
B
And
what
was
the
unn
when
you,
when
you,
when
you
created,
get
lab
calm
and
you're
selling
it
I'm
gonna,
build
this
this
this,
this
commercial,
offering
and
and
and
contribute
back
to
the
community
and
but
also
give
give
the
community
things
which,
which
they
don't
have
I
didn't
have
at
that
time,
and
did
you
know
this
was
gonna
be
big?
Did
you
have
a
feeling
this
was?
This
was
gonna,
be
you
know
in
2020
you'd
be
sitting
here
looking
back
at
everything
that
they
get
lab
had
done?
B
A
Know
I
didn't
think
it'd,
be
this
big
at
the
time.
At
a
time
it
was
the
energy
was
in
like
hey.
Every
single
tool,
I'm
using
as
a
developer,
is
open
source,
except
for
the
collaboration
tool
and
I
found
that
really
ironic,
like
of
any
tool.
The
collaboration
tool
should
be
open
to
contributions
right.
So
that's
that's
the
potential
Ison
and
we
joined
by
Combinator
with
like
MA,
would
be
great
if
we
can
be
50.
A
A
So
in
the
beginning
make
sure
that
you're,
you
can
kind
of
discuss
strategy
in
a
great
way
like,
oh,
maybe
like
the
the
the
first
thing
faster
Bruce.
We
also
picked
him
because
he
was
a
value-add.
He
knew
a
lot
about
enterprise
sales
and
I.
That
was
the
area
I
was
weakest,
so
probably
am,
and
then
we're
really
ill
chip.
It
was
very
strategic
like
we
did.
B
A
So
have
a
ton
of
experience
because
you
want
to
avoid
all
the
mistakes
people
have
already
made
before
you
be
efficient
with
time
we
like
to
sing
to
communication
and
and
understand
the
difference
between
running
the
company
and
being
on
the
board.
Like
the
board,
is
there
for
advice?
They
should
never
try
to
prescribe
things,
they
should
dive
into
things
and
they
should
decide
things,
and
you
should
ask
questions,
but
it
should
never
try
to
run
a
company
got.
A
Well,
on
the
22nd
will
have
a
new
release,
it's
gonna
be
12.10
and
it's
gonna
be
chock-full
of
features,
and
what
get
matter
is?
Is
it's
a
it's,
a
complete
DevOps
platform
delivered
as
a
single
application
and
it's
what
we're
seeing
where
customers
is,
that
it's
so
much
easier
to
not
have
to
go
to
ten
different
apps
for
planning
and
creating
the
code
and
testing
the
code
and
packaging
it
and
monitoring
it.
But
instead
do
that
in
a
single
application.
A
It
brings
everyone
literally
on
the
same
page,
and
people
can
go
much
faster
and
if
you
can
go
faster,
you
can
get
more
done.
But,
more
importantly,
you
can
get
more
feedback
and
a
fewer
cancel
projects
and
it's
more
motivating.
So
that's
why
we'll
be
doing
in
every
month
we'll
sending
steps
towards
having
a
more
comprehensive,
offering
that's.