►
Description
Sid Sijbrandij (Co-founder and CEO, GitLab) and Scott Johnston (CEO at Docker) sit down for an unfiltered conversation on building an intentional all-remote organization.
They are joined by Darren Murph (GitLab) and Alisa Avelar (Docker).
Topics include:
1. Considering and hiring a dedicated remote work leader
2. Vital building blocks for an all-remote culture
3. Formalizing informal communication
4. Importance of documentation and using a company handbook to codify operations
5. Empathy in 1-1s
6. In-person strategy in a remote team
A
Darren,
maybe
jumping
into
the
the
agenda
here
the
the
thing
that
I
and
Elisa
please
jump
in
she's
she's,
our
head
of
people
again
fantastic
ad
to
the
exact
team.
She
was
not
here
previous
2019,
but
it's
been
a
breath
of
fresh
air
for
all
of
us
and
and
also
deeply
deeply
vested
in
figuring
out
how
to
do
remote
first
or
all
remote
successfully.
A
The
one
of
the
questions
I
had
Darren
is
that,
as
you
kind
of
think
about
your
role
and
how
it's
evolved
from
marketing
strategy
and
Ops
like
and
how
you
hire
for
your
role
like
how
do
you,
how
do
you
keep
track
of
the
impact
you're
having
on
the
business
and
when
you
and
Sid
sit
down
and
say,
like
the
impact
you've
had
this
quarter
impact
that
you're
going
to
have
in
the
coming
year
like?
What
does
that
conversation?
Look
like.
B
It's
different
now
than
it
was,
and
so
I
wrote
this
I
was
in
marketing
for
a
while,
and
so
the
impact
first
couple
of
years
was
mostly
on
Impressions.
And
how
far
can
this
message
reach
and
what
other
contributions
can
we
get
from
the
outside
world,
other
companies
that
are
going
remote,
first
or
virtual
first
and
then
building
that
back
into
the
remote
Playbook?
What.
C
B
Interesting
about
the
approach
was,
we
were
codifying
how
we
did
remote
in
a
way
that
our
team
needed,
but
we
built
it
in
a
transparent
way
so
that
the
rest
of
the
world
could
leverage
it.
So
it's
like
do
it
once
and
and
leverage
it
multiple
times,
but
I
was
sitting
in
marketing.
So
that's
where
that's
where
the
metrics
were
driven
from
Recently
I
moved
over
to
says
Chief
of
Staff
team
in
strategy
and
operations,
and
we
launched
team
Ops
earlier
this
month.
D
B
Just
October
5th,
so
not
not
long,
so
we're
still
codifying
what
exactly
the
metrics
are
externally.
Our
first
big
milestone
was
to
get
a
thousand
get
lab
team
members
certified
in
team
Ops,
so
that
was
codifying
our
people
practice
codifying
our
ways
of
working
and
then
getting
over
half
the
company
certified
in
it
as
an
MVC.
So
we
stood
all
of
that
up
in
a
quarter
and
a
lot
of
typical
gitlab
fashion.
B
D
B
Has
been
the
big
light
bulb
for
me
of
where
do
we
go
going
forward?
I
think
what
we
have
is
foundationally
sound
and
is
resonating
with
people,
so
we're
just
gonna
trying
to
scale
it
from
there
now.
My
is
my
interpretation
it
where
I'm
at
and
where
git
lab
is
at
is.
It
is
different
than
where
you're
at
oh
for
sure
what
you
need
yeah.
B
A
And
I
do
want
to
zoom
down
back
to
that
or
Zoom
around
to
that
I.
Just
your
own
journey
and
kind
of
how
your
own
journey
is
changed.
What
you
measure
and
where
you
came
from
where
you
sit
is
interesting:
I
should
have
started
with
Sid.
Maybe
I
want
to
start
with
with
the
origin
story
like
like
you're,
a
remote
first
or
all
remote
from
the
beginning
and
I
just
I'd
love
to
hear
kind
of
the.
Why
behind
that
like?
Why
did
you
just
start
the
company
saying
like
hey?
C
I
also
didn't
tell
you
that
you
have
to
be
here,
but
they
just
like
it
was
so
natural
to
just
even
when
we
were
sitting
next
to
each
other.
We
we
were
working
remote
first,
so
there
was
no
reason
to
make
the
commute
and
that
pattern
repeated
itself
in
San,
Francisco
or
the
the
people
came
in
from
like
Alameda
like
two
two
days
and
then
they
didn't
come
in
and
at
a
certain
point
we
were
like.
Okay,
we're
just
gonna,
make
it
official.
E
C
One
of
the
reasons
was:
is
we
wanted
to
be
on
the
same
level
as
The
Wider
Community
around
gitlab,
but
we
since
found
that
it
it
also.
It
also
helps
with
kind
of
our
talent
brand,
like
there's
a
lot
of
people
who
work
at
a
hybrid
company
and
they
don't
live
near
the
office.
They're
not
able
to
go
there
frequently,
and
they
suspect
that
there's
a
certain
amount
of
presenteeism
for
the
people
who
kind
of
who
the
boss
sees
walking
around,
get
have
an
edge
in
in
getting
promoted
and
getting
other
benefits.
D
A
C
And
then
we
we
wrote
down
a
lot
of
our
lessons.
Darren
did
a
great
job
of
kind
of
extracting
a
lot
of
our
lessons
in
a
in
a
guide
and
a
lot
of
companies
when
they
were
going
remote
and
then
kind
of
after
has
the
pandemic
is
now
kind
of
receding
and
people
said:
look
we
get
remote,
we
get
it
and
it's
like.
Yes,
you
get,
you
can
work
in
using
using
video
calling
and
using
slacker
teams.
C
You
get
that,
but
there's
there's
more
to
to
our
practices
and
we've
we
figured
we
some
of
the
lessons
really
don't
apply
to
working
remote,
it's
just
working
together
effectively
and
that's
when
we
said:
okay,
we're
going
to
bundle
this
in
team
Ops
and
it's
about
how
to
how
you
make
decisions.
How
do
you
make
decisions
faster
and
and
how
do
you
make
more
of
them?
And
how
do
you
execute
on
them?
And-
and
we
realize
that
a
lot
of
things
that
we
thought
were
remote
working
practices
are
just
good
working
practices.
A
Interesting
but
the
remote
kind
of
put
a
spotlight
on
them
and
pushed
you
to
codify
them
and
make
it
super
clear.
Yep
interesting
was
this
the
trigger
just
out
of
curiosity,
so
that
your
company
is
hyper
transparent,
which
I
I
love
in
terms
of
publishing
its
practices
and
its
processes
was
was
the
all
remote
the
triggered
for
doing
that
I
would
was
that
already
there
you
just
kind
of
leaned
into
it
with
the
all
remote.
C
Yeah
I
think
in
remote
it
was
kind
of
a
pool
even
before
the
pandemic.
People
companies
were
going
remote
and
we
had
a
lot
of
calls
for
like
hey.
Can
you
tell
about
remotes
at
a
certain
part?
It
was
like:
okay,
let's,
let's
hire
a
Guinness
World
Record
holder
in
blogging
and
have
have
him
there
and
extract
all
the
lessons
from
the
2000
pages
in
our
handbook
and
make
like
30
pages
that
people
can
actually
read
and
consume
in
a
in
a
limited
amount
of
time.
His.
A
Well,
maybe
just
in
respect
for
the
the
time
I'll
give
a
quick
snippet,
because
you're
right
Darren
we're
in
a
very
different
place
in
our
own
Journey,
but
I'll
share
with
maybe
some
of
the
the
highlights
of
the
Milestones
of
ours
just
to
give
additional
context-
and
you
could
see
in
my
in
our
brief
brief
email
introduction.
So
as
I
referenced,
we
we
split
the
company
more
than
split.
We
carved
out
360
people
at
420
scaled
it
down
to
60..
A
At
the
time
the
the
first
book
of
Docker
Docker
1.0
was
in
a
hybrid
state
where
we
had
four
hubs:
office
hubs
around
the
world
where
about
60
of
people
came
into
the
office
and
40
remoted
in
and
so
that's
that's
important
context
because
I'll
share
with
you
kind
of
The
Upside.
So
then
we
say:
okay,
there's
a
lot
of
guys.
Of
course
there
was
a
lot
of
pain
from
the
restructuring
and
the
recapitalization,
and
we
want
to
get
everyone
together,
but
then
March
2020
hit
covet
hit
and
we
never
actually
got
everyone
together.
A
A
Three
three
things
happen,
one
one
is
as
we
surveyed
the
employees.
We
found
that
and
when
you
talk
to
them,
informally,
one-on-one
and
such,
but
both
formal
and
informal
feedback
was
everyone
hated.
The
60
40
collaboration,
because
those
that
were
in
the
office
got
much
higher
Fidelity
conversation.
They
got
the
water
cooler
versus
those
that
were
moaning
in,
they
felt
like
they
were
second-class
citizens
and
they
didn't
get
quality
of
collaboration.
A
So
we
said,
sell
those
things
off,
so
we
sold
off
the
offices
and
got
that
cash
back,
which
gave
us
a
little
bit
more
oxygen
at
the
time
and
then
third
is
we
started.
Loosening
because
the
offices
were
gone,
we
started
loosening
our
recruiting
requirements.
We
used
to
recruit
just
around
those
hubs
and
all
of
a
sudden
we
found
I,
think
I.
Think
Sid
mentioned
this
earlier.
We
found
like
we
get
Talent
fantastic
Talent
from
anywhere
around
the
world
and
so
those
three
factors
about
six
months
into
the
pandemic.
A
So
about
this
about
summer
2020,
those
six,
those
three
factors-
Talent
is
everywhere.
Employees
were
happier
from
a
collaboration
standpoint
and
a
much
better
use
of
cash.
Those
three
factors
together
said:
you
know
what
we're
going
we're
going.
All
virtual
virtual
first
100
virtual
we've
been
using
different
labels
going
forward.
This
is
our
mode
going
forward,
and
so,
as
I
mentioned
in
my
email
like
it
wasn't
an
intentionality
about
it,
it
was
purely
reacting
to
covet,
but
once
we
were
there,
we
realized
wow.
C
So
yeah
and
what
you
did
made
a
ton
of
sense
right,
hybrid,
is
horrible.
Everyone
who's
been
in
a
call
if
you
dial
in
remotely
and
there's
people
sitting
around
a
conference
table
like
forget
about
it,
you're
going
to
be
too
slow
to
chime
in
there's
people
around
the
table.
Typically,
don't
have
the
Google
Doc
open
with
the
agenda
and
the
real-time
node
state.
C
They
are
not
quick
with
screen
sharing.
It's
it's
just
a
miserable
experience,
so
you
need
to
go
to
one
way
of
working,
so
you
did
that
I
think
it's
not
that
it's
I
think
what
you
need
now
is
intentionality
around
informal
communication,
because
that
used
to
happen
organically
at
Great
cost
not
just
the
office,
not
just
the
office
manager,
but
people
commuting
limiting
your
talent
pool
to
those
four
cities,
people
not
being
able
to
who
live
near
their
grandparents
like
at
enormous
cost.
C
The
cost
for
the
informal
communication
can
be
much
reduced,
but
by
but
right
now
you've
reduced
it
to
zero.
Like
you're
spending
zero
dollars
on
it.
That's
not
okay,
I
think
you
should
spend
more
on
it.
You
should
organize
there's
many
ways
to
organize
it.
If
you
Google
gitlab
informal
communication
you'll
find
20
suggestions,
but
put
your
money
where
your
mouth
is.
C
If
you
think
it's
important
to
have
camaraderie
and
a
splitter
core
in
in
your
company,
organize
these
things
and
that's
everything
from
was
a
team
member
today
who
scheduled
a
donut
call
with
me
a
25
minute
social
call,
that's
automatically
you're
automatically
matched
to
other
people,
but
also
we
had
a
visiting
Grant
this
quarter
where
people
got
500
or
a
thousand
dollars
to
meet
up
together.
You.
D
D
A
You
put
that
so
so
I'll
share
with
you
our
again
Journey,
not
as
far
along
by
any
stretches
as
you
all,
but
so
with
the
savings
from
the
real
estate
from
the
commercial
real
estate.
We
did
two
things:
we
we
gave
regional
managers
budgets
so
they
could
on
their
own
organized
dinners
or
you
know,
chalk
talks
or
whatnot,
and
then
elise's
team
set
up
a
subscription
with
a
company
called
Gables
that
basically
gives
us
a
one-click
access
to
like
the
weworks
and
the
Regis
and
all
the
rent
of
space
right
yep.
A
A
But
but
we've
made
that
very
much
Bottoms
Up
like.
If
teams
want
to
do
that,
then
they
reach
out
and
they
pull
I'm.
Just
curious
are
your:
are
your
managers
also
kind
of
aware
of
the
social
importance
that
they're
actually
pushing
as
well
saying
hey?
We
need
to
at
least
once
a
month
or
once
a
quarter
or
that
sort
of
thing,
I
guess
trying
to
understand
like
how
much
is
bottoms
up
versus
how
much
is
tops,
encourage,
let's
call
it
and
sort
of
tops
down.
C
C
What's
also,
maybe
important
to
reinforce
is
that
it's
cross-functional
meetups
that
you
want
to
prevent
is
like
the
sales
people
meet
up
with
the
sales
people
and
the
engineers
meet
up
with
the
engineers
totally
agree:
you're,
probably
a
functionally
organized
organization,
those
those
intra
functions,
meetups
those
are
the
best
and
then
it
seems
you're
doing
an
amazing
job
at
in-person.
Meetups,
don't
forget
that
organized
informal
communication
can
also
happen
remotely
doing
quizzes
together
doing
well.
You
can
see
and
there's
I
think
15
examples
of
remote
informal
communication
on
that
page.
C
D
A
One
that's
a
neat
one.
Well
given
again
I
want
to
respect
the
time
both
you
have
given
us,
which
again
very
very
appreciative.
If,
given
the
little
we've
shared
about
our
current
state,
which,
as
we
noted
is,
is
kind
of
years
behind,
probably
where
you
all
are,
if
you
had
a
your,
your,
your
material
is
very
voluminous,
there's
a
lot
of
great
stuff
there,
and
so
you
know
Elise
and
I
could,
like
guess
and
like
okay,
where
do
we
start?
We
can't
do
it
all
at
once.
A
A
A
B
I
I
look
at
our
handbook
as
the
operating
manual
for
gitlab,
like
if
gitlab
were
a
product
sold
on
Amazon.
When
you
open
the
box,
the
instruction
manual
in
it
is
so
good
that
you
can
operate
it
yeah,
that's
kind
of
the
more
I
I
hold
us
too,
and
it
and
it
ensures
that
the
handbook
is
a
living
breathing
organism
and
a
codified
way
of
working
versus
just
a
stale,
Wiki.
B
B
A
team
apart
faster
than
not
knowing
what's
true,
what's
the
single
source
of
Truth,
the
example
of
that
I
that
comes
to
mind
for
us
is
we
use
gitlab
the
product
to
collaborate
across
teams
and
across
functions
and
I.
Look
at
that
as
our
proverbial
Central
hallway,
where,
if,
if
we
were
in
a
physical
office
gitlab
the
product
is
our
hallway,
where
I
can
walk
down
this
hallway
in
an
infinite
length
and
find
out.
What's
going
on
in
the
in
the
org.
A
D
B
D
A
A
B
Put
this
in
12,
A
and
B
I
have
found
these
little
tag
lines
to
be
good.
When
you're
stewarding
change
management,
one
is
memos
over
meetings.
Another
one
is
connection
before
content.
Now
this
isn't
meetings
and
or
sorry
memos
and
never
meetings
or
you
know
only
can
it's
not
exclusive,
but
it
does
kind
of
help
you
lean
in
One,
Direction
or
the
other.
If
you,
if
you
have
a
memos
over
meetings
mindset,
then
you
start
with
a
proposal.
D
B
A
B
B
C
I
think
one
thing
that
has
that
has
continued
to
be
hard
is
the
handbook
and
two
practices
to
reinforce
their
our
handbook
first.
So
if
you
communicate
something,
you
communicate
it
via
the
handbook,
it's
never
like.
Hey
I
sent
you
a
powerpoint
of
to
change
it
now.
Oh
I'll
change
it
in
the
handbook
later,
like
that's,
never
gonna
happen.
C
And
the
second
thing
is
iteration:
that's
our
toughest
value
like
hey,
I'm,
not
ready,
yet
with
this.
Well,
probably
what
you
have
is
already
better
than
what's
in
the
handbook
today
so
update
it,
bring
it
to
at
least
a
better
state.
It
doesn't
have,
there's
no
perfect
state.
It
will
forever
be
in
draft
Yeah.
D
A
C
Are
hard
so
handbook
first
is
hard,
but
iteration
in
all
its
aspects
is
our
our
toughest
value
of
our
top
three
values:
our
results,
iteration
and
transparency.
Everyone
gets
transparency.
Everyone
also
gets
iteration,
but
it's
hard
because
you
hire
people,
but
people
at
gitlab
are
ambitious.
They
want
to
get
some
Fair
somewhere
awesome
and
into
two
kind
of
voluntarily
reduce
that
scope
to
something
that
you're
almost
kind
of
embarrassed
about
shipping,
but
getting
that
out
the
door
faster.
It's
very
mentally
tough.
That's
a
shift.