►
Description
In this talk from our All-Remote event, we go deep with GitLab’s co-founder and CEO Sid Sijbrandij on his experience evolving the company very early on into being fully-remote. We also cover what he’s learned about propagating a strong, cohesive culture across a team of nearly 1,200 people, and why businesses will need to embrace remote work culture to endure.
Moderator: Kyle Doherty, Managing Director at General Catalyst
Panelist: Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and CEO at GitLab
Read more about our product vision: http://bit.ly/2IyXDOX
Learn about FOSS & GitLab: http://bit.ly/2KegFjx
Get in touch with Sales: http://bit.ly/2IygR7z
A
A
You
know
I
think
as
I
sort
of
reflect
a
little
bit,
there's
sort
of
I,
guess
four
categories
of
areas
of
challenges
and
issues
that
I
think
a
lot
of
people
have
been
bringing
up
through
the
course
both
through
the
questions
from
the
audience
which
have
been
great.
So
please
keep
those
coming
because
we'll
try
to
address
those
a
little
bit
later,
but
also
do
the
panelists
and
I.
Think
sort
of
those
four
categories
have
been
culture,
communication
management
and
hiring
sort
of
I.
A
Think
that's
what's
on
top
of
people's
minds,
so
we'll
eventually
dig
into
that
and
get
your
thoughts
on
that
SID.
But
I
think
you
alluded
to
this
earlier
and
when
we
initially
spoke
up
here
that
you
used
to
have
an
office
I
get
lab,
but
people
stop
showing
up.
You
just
tell
us
a
little
bit
more
about
that.
Yeah.
B
For
sure,
so
the
first
office
was
my
house
in
the
Netherlands
and
I
had
a
spare
desk
in
anybody,
who's
new
to
the
company
would
like
be
invited
and
he
came
on
Monday
and
it
tends
to
be
that
Wednesday
was
the
last
day
that
they
showed
up.
They
didn't
show
up
on
the
first
day
and
I
was
always
like.
Why
aren't
they
here
and
why
didn't
they
tell
me
that
they
not
intended
to
come
like
I
thought
it
was
weird,
but
I
felt
like
okay.
Well,
it's
about
the
work
they
were
working.
B
I
was
seeing
results
so
I,
never
I,
never
told
someone
hey
you
have
to
be.
You
have
to
be
there
and
then
the
second
time
was
when
we
went
to
Y
Combinator.
We
were
all
in
the
same
house
for
three
months:
nine
people
a
super-intense,
then
Y
Combinator
said
where
you
plan
on
going
all
remote
after
this,
but
we
don't
recommend
that
remote
works
for
engineers,
but
not
for
sales
and
marketing
so
get
an
office.
B
So
we
listened,
we
got
an
office,
we
put
10
desks
in
there
and
the
same
thing
kind
of
happened,
I
think
Hayden.
Our
salesperson
from
Alameda
was
the
first
person
like
he
showed
up
three
days
and
then
he
didn't
show
up
anymore
and
I
kind
of
patterned.
Repeat
it
so
funny
like
you,
hire
like
a
VP
of
Sales
and
they
say
hottest.
This
doesn't
work
for
STRs
the
people
who
do
outbound
they're
just
out
of
college.
They
won't
be
able
to
do
this,
but
by
the
time
he
came
around
to
hiring
BTR's.
B
A
Really
interesting,
so
somebody
made
a
comment
earlier.
That's
the
first
50
hires
you
make
are
really
really
crucial
for
setting
that
tone
for
culture
of
the
organization
an
actually
be
curious.
How
were
you
able
to
recruit
people
in
your
early
days
to
get
through
that
first
50
hires?
What
was
sort
of
the
pitch?
You
know
what
were
people
either
attracted
to
or
maybe
turned
off
a
little
bit
by
the
remote
nature
of
it
or
certain?
How
did
you
get
people
over
the
line
to
join
the
company.
B
Yeah
I
I'm
gonna
disagree
a
bit
I.
Think
culture
is
something
you
do
continuously
and
I
think
our
culture
is
is
more
strong
and/or
pronounced
now
than
it
was
at
a
time,
and
it's
because
we
wrote
it
down
because
we
continually
iterate
on
it,
but
also
because
we
reinforce
it.
You
can
find
the
11
ways
in
which
we
kind
of
reinforce
our
values
on
our
values
page.
But
the
pitch
like
to
join
a
remote
company
was
hey.
You're
gonna
have
more
time
so
you're
gonna,
you're
gonna
not
have
your
commute
time.
B
You're
gonna
have
more
kind
of
freedom.
How
how
you
distribute
your
day?
You
want
to
go
to
the
to
the
gym
or
the
supermarket
during
the
day.
That's
fine
and
you're
gonna
have
more
flexibility
if
there's
something
unforeseen
that
pops
up,
but
there
were
also
other
pictures.
If
people
were
already
remote,
it's
like
the
already
remote.
You
know
how
awesome
it
is,
but
this
is
now
a
company
where
you're
not
in
the
satellite
office.
You
don't
feel
out
the
loop
because
everyone's
on
the
same
level
and.
B
A
B
For
sure
and
it
was
most
pronounced
during
our
be
around
during
the
a
round
we
were
still
sat
on
the
office
during
the
be
round
is.
It
was
pretty
clear
that
we
were
not
gonna.
Do
that
and
we
had
a
great
investor
here
in
the
valley
who
was
very
articulate
they
say.
Look
you
check
all
the
boxes,
except
for
this
remote
thing
that
you're
doing
and
it's
just
not
it's
unusual,
and
he
said
literally
I.
B
Don't
I'm
not
saying
it's
not
gonna
work,
it's
just
a
risk
that
we
don't
have
to
take
because
we
have
enough
deal
flow
to
take
a
company
that
does
check
that
box.
So
that
was
I.
Couldn't
disagree
with
that
and
we
didn't
get
that
investment
and
there's
a
person
here
who
actually
managed
to
convince
convince
our
be
round
investor
or
risk
capital,
and
his
name
is
a
be
easier
in
the
crowd.
Things
can't
call
me
a
V.
We
stand
up.
B
Oh
he's
meeting
another
founder,
I,
always
hustling,
so
the
feedback
was
from
Philly
ill
Jeff
he's
like
I
love
this
company.
It's
great
I'm
concerned
about
this
remote
thing,
but
what
he
did
great
is
like
he
invited
us
to
talk
about
it.
So
all
the
other
investors
were
like
thinking
internally,
but
not
inviting
us
to
talk
about
it,
so
he
invited
us
I
had
a
deck
specifically
addressing
all
the
concerns.
We're
at
the
end
of
the
deck
and
Finley
is
like
yeah.
B
That
sounds
nice
kind
of
being
able
to
mitigate
it
and
then
a
be
pounded,
punted
his
fists
on
the
table,
almost
I,
don't
think
literally,
but
he
was
pretty
close
to
that.
He
said:
look
I
spend
the
entire
night
reading
their
handbook.
This
is
the
best
run
company
I've
ever
seen,
and
that
kind
of
closed
the
deal
for
us.
A
B
It's
remarkable
that
customers
is
not
a
problem.
Customers
love
when
you
visit
them,
so
it's
not
a
problem
in
her
our
CFO,
his
zoom
back
rent
now
is
a
UPS
office.
It's
the
UPS
office
where
get
lab
is
registered.
Sometimes
they
have
people
kind
of
showing
up
there
and
asking
where
your
lab
is
and
it's
like.
It's
all
remote.
There
is
no.
There
is
no
office.
That's.
A
Funny
a
little
bit
on
hiring
she
sort
of
mentioned
a
little
bit
earlier,
what's
sort
of
the
approach
to
identifying
talent
when
you
have
effectively
seven
billion
people
in
the
world,
how
do
you
narrow
the
scope
and
find
and
attract
the
right
talent?
You
know
you
can't
hold
the
local
meetup
to
try
and
find
people.
What
is
what
are
some
things
that
get
lab
is
doing
to
do
that
currently.
B
That's
not
I,
don't
think
that's
healthy
or
good,
so
we're
gonna
go
we're
going
to
strive
for
50/50
and
doing
more
outbound
ourselves,
who'll
be
able
to
kind
of
attract
people
that
make
the
company
more
diverse.
We
think
that's
a
great
lever,
but
so
far
people
finding
us.
We
get
a
lot
of
people
say:
I
read
your
handbook,
I
kind
of
copy-paste,
it
certain
things
to
our
organization
and
then,
after
a
while
I
start
thinking,
I
might
as
well
work
at
the
company
where
to
make
the
handbook
right.
B
Well,
we
started
early
the
first
Net
Promoter
Score,
we
did
are
a
satisfaction.
Score
in
our
case
was
for
the
hiring
experience.
So
we
asked
everyone
who
got
declined
by
us.
What
their
experience
was,
we're
striving
for
4.4.2
and
we've
generally
been
above
400
for
that
so
measuring
it
right
now,
our
that's
on
another
five
skill,
yeah
I
got
a
five
scale.
Yeah,
doesn't
that
be
pretty
bad,
and
then
we
still
working
to
get
apply
to
accept
to
get
that
timing
down
from
40
days
to
30
days,
I.
A
That
makes
a
lot
of
sense,
and
one
of
your
colleagues
mentioned
earlier
about
the
salary
widget
that
you
guys
have
create
a
sort
of
a
calculator
to
come
up
with
the
appropriate
compensation
based
on
where
something
is
in
the
world.
Can
you
talk
a
little
bit
more
about
how
you
came
up
with
the
idea
where
you
get
the
data
and
tell
us
a
bit
more
about
that?
Yeah.
B
That
was
a
huge
undertaking,
so
we
had
people
applying
and
we
wanted
to
not
be
paying
people
differently
without
a
reason,
and
we
do
want
to
pay
people
local
market
salary
like
it's,
not
healthy,
for
people
to
be
above
market
because
they
will
not
leave
your
company
even
though
they're
miserable
and
that's
not
good,
for
people
to
be
underpaid
because
they
will
leave
your
company
even
though
they're
doing
great
so
a
market
is,
is
determined
by
the
metro
region.
You
live
in,
there's
huge
differences
between
San,
Francisco
and
somewhere
else.
B
So
we
try
to
we
try
to
get
to
that
and
in
the
beginning
we
were
kind
of
thinking
about
like
cost
of
living
and
stuff
like
that.
But
it's
not
about
that.
It's
it's
about
the
market
wage
and
we
found
that
the
rent
in
a
city
is
a
great
indicator
of
what
the
market
wages.
Now
we've
since
progressed
a
bit
beyond
that
and
Britney
who
was
on
stage
earlier,
did
a
great
job
at
that,
and
we
it's
a
pretty
simple
formula
and
it
has
six
factors.
B
One
of
it
is
the
San
Francisco
benchmark
like
what
is
this
wage
in
San
Francisco?
One
of
it
is
the
location.
One
of
it
is
like.
What's
the
level
of
the
the
job
like?
Are
you
senior
or
junior?
One
of
it
is
kind
of
the
experience
within
that
level,
and
so
that's
a
ten
higher
or
lower
one
of
it
is:
are
you
a
contractor
or
an
employee,
and
with
those
factors
we
were
able
to
kind
of
construct,
a
great
salary
which
we
display
on
our
job
pages.
B
A
B
Don't
think
so
I
think
you
can
live
without
a
calculator
that
is
public.
We
just
default
to
public
I.
Do
think
it's
very
important
that
you
can
explain
internally
why
you're
paying
people
different
things
like
you,
you
have
people
come
together.
They
talk
about
their
salary
and
they
come
to
to
me
like
hey.
Why
am
I
earning
half
of
this
other
person
and
you,
you
better,
have
the
right
answer,
like
hey,
they're,
a
contractor
in
a
high-cost
region
and
you're
living
in
the
lower
cost
region
etc,
and
this
is
how
it
works.
A
B
We
started
with
that
because
we
are
a
company
that
is
very
influential
an
open
source
project
and
what
you
find
is
that
people
in
the
open-source
community
tend
to
be
skeptical
of
the
influence
of
the
company
and
making
that
work
is
essential
to
our
success
and
we
thought
by
giving
them
greater
insight
into
the
company.
You
tend
to
have
more
compassion
and
more
trust,
and
it's
easier
when
something
goes
off
the
rail
to
be
to
quickly
remedy
that.
B
We
also
found
it's
a
great
help
in
hiring
people.
If
you
can
tell
like,
having
that
hand
book
out,
there
is
a
great
kind
of
promotional
tool.
People
can
opt
into
our
culture
like
if
they
like
how
we
run
a
company,
they
can
opt
in
another
that
doesn't
have
to
be
everyone,
because
there's
there's
many
more
people
than
can
ever
work
at
get
labs.
B
A
B
Yeah
I
think
soom
is
slack,
argot
I
think
Google
Docs.
We
use
it
for
meetings
and
we
have
a.
We
make
sure,
there's
an
agenda
for
every
meeting,
it's
editable
by
everyone.
It
has
the
questions.
You
typed
a
question
in
the
meeting
doc
before
you
even
ask
it
and
people
are
taking
now
it's
real
time
of
the
meeting
and
it
it's
it's
made
our
meetings,
much
more
focused
and
efficient,
and
also,
if
you're,
if
there's
some
people
who
can't
attend
the
meeting,
they
have
much
better
notes
of
what
the
meeting
was
about.
B
A
On
the
communication
front,
one
of
the
challenges
you
might
run
into
with
a
distributor
or
remote
workforces,
different
cultures
and
views
of
the
worlds
based
on
where
you
live,
and
recently
there's
been
some
reports
about
how
you
deal
with
political
banter.
I'd
get
loud.
You
talk
a
little
bit
about.
You
know
why
that
has
been
a
challenge.
If
it
has
been
in
some
of
the
decisions
you
made
as
the
CEO
around
that
yeah.
B
We
we
have
a
policy
of
not
bringing
up
political
subjects
in
the
workplace
and
I
I
think
it's
it's
the
default
for
a
lot
of
companies,
but
you
see
that
here
on
the
west
coast,
especially
like
in
San
Francisco
it
it's
getting
more
prevalent
to
bring
things
up
so
we're
kind
of
we're
struggling
to
kind
of
rhyme.
The
two
things
on
one
hand:
we
do
want
to
kind
of
talk
about
things
that
are
important
internally.
B
On
the
other
hand,
we
don't
want
to
alienate
people
so
I
think
it's
hard
I
think
we
have
a
lot
of
a
significant
portion
of
the
people
who
work
at
our
company
are
Republicans
and
we
don't
want
to
alienate
those
people
at
the
same
time.
There's
things
happening
that
there
were
not
that
I
can
imagine
a
lot
of
people
in
the
company,
including
myself,
are
not
super
happy
about.
B
B
Was
basically
when
I
came
to
the
US
and
I
realized
that
was
kind
of
happening
in
a
lot
of
companies
already
for
our
people
in
Europe?
That
was
something
that
was
not
like.
If
you,
if
you
work
in
the
u.s.,
you
know
not
to
bring
up
political
things
the
most
at
the
time,
unless
you're
kind
of
aware
of
what
the
vibe
is
of
the
rest
of
the
people
for
the
people
in
Europe
that
wasn't
obvious
and
I
was
creating
a
lot
of
confusion.
B
A
Really
interesting,
so
one
of
the
questions
that
we
actually
got
from
a
number
of
people,
we
asked
a
few
people
when
they
signed
up.
You
know
what
sort
of
some
of
the
challenges
were.
I
think
people
did
struggle
with
the
level
of
transparency.
Do
you
think
you
can
still
get
an
all
remote
organization
to
work
without
high
level
of
transparency,
I
think.
B
Obviously
you
don't
have
to
be
public
about
things
like
we're
public
about
everything.
I,
don't
think,
that's
necessary,
it's
something
we
do,
but
others
don't
I
do
think
that
remote
is
mostly
about
working
asynchronously.
You
can't
you
can't
shoulder
tap
as
easily.
You
can
ask
us
easily,
so
you
do
have
to
make
sure
materials
are
available
and
you
cannot
wait
for
something
to
someone
to
share
something
with
you
and
if
that's
the
case,
you
have
to
share
things
with
more
people
than
you'd.
Normally
do
so
I
do
think.
A
Sense,
shifting
gears
to
talk
a
little
bit
about
culture
and
you
and
you
mentioned
at
the
beginning-
that's
cultures
and
then
you're
constantly
working
on
and
it
sort
of
feeds
on
itself.
Your
culture
today
is
stronger
than
when
you
started
at
the
business
talked
us
through
a
little
bit
about.
Why
that's
the
case
and
some
of
the
things
that
you
do
to
foster
culture,
yeah.
B
I
think
it's
it's
the
case
both
because
our
values
are
better
defined.
Like
you,
Google
get
live
values
you'll,
see
that
there's
a
lot
of
thinking
that
went
into
that
and
there's
a
lot
of
examples
when
we
start
with
the
culture.
All
of
that
was
we
weren't
at
some
point.
We
had
13
values
and
nobody
could
name
more
than
three.
So
I
think
that's
a
lot
better
now
and
there's
also
like
more
ways
in
which
we
reinforced
them,
and
we
have
eleven
ways
right
now
and
examples
are:
every
promotion
is
linked
to
our
values.
B
Every
higher
is
linked
to
our
values,
and
you
know
in
a
in
case
of
a
promotion
publicly
for
the
whole
company
to
see
there's
also
things
like.
We
have
a
thank
you
channel
and
when
people
thank
someone
you
can
add
emojis
for
the
values
that
kind
of
applied
to
that,
and
that's
input
for
like
a
value
award.
We
give
later
during
our
global,
get
together
and.
A
B
One
see
once
a
year
or
once
every
nine
to
twelve
months,
we
come
together
as
a
company,
it's
about
85%
attendance
and
we
spend
our
time
not
on
death
by
PowerPoint
with
presentations.
But
half
of
the
time
we
go
on
excursions
together
and
of
the
time
we
have
an
unconference
where
people
bring
up
subjects.
They
want
to
talk
about
an
informal
setting
of
15
people,
great.
A
So
it
got
a
really
good
question
here
from
the
crowd:
I
think
that
there's
been
a
number
of
conversations
on
the
stage
over
the
course
of
the
day
today
around.
How
do
you
ensure
that
people
are
contributing
and
ensure
productivity?
This
is
actually
the
flip
side
of
that.
It's
with
flavor
my
team's.
How
do
you
ensure
people
don't
get
burnt
out?
You
know
other
things
that
you
can
do
to
manage
and
assess
that
it's.
B
I
took
three
weeks
off
this
summer,
I
took
last
week.
I
took
first
a
half
the
day
off.
If
I
did
a
whole
day
like
we
try
to
get
lead
by
example,
as
an
executive
team.
Now,
of
course
like
preventing
burnout,
it's
not
just
about
hours.
You
can
burn
out
working
very
few
hours.
So
it's
also
important
that
when
managers
see
someone's
productivity
declining
to
have
an
open
conversation
and
could
be
due
to
them
not
working
hard
enough,
but
almost
in
every
case,
it's
due
to
something
else
in.
A
B
Don't
and
it's
a
thing:
I
struggle
with
I
had
a
I
have
one
report:
Emily
Cherie,
OH
and
she's.
Now
she
calls
it
as
a
half
a
vacation,
so
she's
not
doing
her
regular
things
but
she's
joining
meetings.
He
finds
interesting.
She
sells
on
slack
but
she's,
also
like
reading
a
ton
of
books
and
doing
other
things
and
I
think
there's
a
huge.
B
We
want
managers
of
one
and
we
better
treat
people
like
managers
of
one
so,
for
example,
at
guild
lab
in
a
meeting,
it's
okay
to
not
pay
attention,
and
if
someone
has
to
repeat
a
question
because
you
weren't
paying
attention,
that's
not
a
shameful
thing.
That's
slowly!
Okay,
we'll
repeat
the
question
you're
the
boss
of
your
own
time.
You
better
manage
it
well
and
if
that
part
of
the
meeting
isn't
doesn't
seem
interesting
to
you,
it's
okay
to
the
email
or
even
Facebook
on
the
side.
It's
okay
turn
your
camera
on.
B
A
B
B
A
B
Asynchronous
a
working
asynchronous,
it's
the
only
thing
you
can
do
so
write
things
down
record
it
if
you
Google
I,
get
lapin
filter
you'll
find
a
YouTube
channel
with
like
a
ton
of
videos
right
now.
Our
biggest
thing
problem
is
that
we
can
only
live
stream.
One
meeting
at
a
time,
so
we're
gonna
create
a
bunch
of
extra
channels,
write
things
down,
work
in
issue
trackers,
it's
also
about
taking
stuff
out
of
slack.
B
If
you
can,
because
the
slack
conversation
kind
of
moves
on
and
then
people
in
other
time
zones
are
left
also
not
have
too
many
meetings
like
try
to
do
things.
Asynchronously,
for
example,
there's
a
key
meeting
for
sales,
and
they
did
it
asynchronously
this
this
month,
so
I
think
that's
the
only
thing
that
can
fight
it.
Still,
it's
still
not
great.
The
experience
forget
lab,
and
people
for
people
in
asia-pacific
is
not
as
great
as
for
the
people
in
America
and
Europe
and
as.
A
A
A
great
question
just
came
in
actually
that's
related
to
what
we
were
talking
about
previously.
What
do
you
do
if
an
employee
on
a
vacation
is
not
checking
their
email
and
you
might
lose
a
customer
because
of
that?
Is
that
something
that
you've
run
into
or
how
would
you
deal
with
the
problem
like
that?
Yeah.
B
I've
not
seen
that
problem
happening
and
and
for
example,
if
it's
a
customer
thing
like
we
try
to
work
in
issue
trackers,
we
our
salespeople,
keep
the
notes
in
Salesforce
like
we
tried
a
document
thing
so
so
there
should
no
be
nobody
who's
like
immiscible,
and
but
it's
okay
like
it's.
If
it's
something
you
really
dire
yeah,
do
you
send
them
a
text?
You.
A
B
A
B
B
A
Great,
so
any
advice,
so
we've
had
a
lot.
I've
talked
to
quite
a
few
people
in
the
crowd
today
and
I.
Think
a
lot
of
them
are
earlier
stage
founders,
who
are
thinking
about
going
fully
remote's
any
particular
advice
you
would
give
them.
You
know
from
the
earliest
stages
that
they
should
be
focused
on
I.
B
Think
the
hardest
thing
at
Gallup
has
been
a
handbook
first
culture,
and
that
is
like,
if
you
want
to
make
a
change
that
the
company,
if
you
want
to
change
something
you
change
it
in
the
handbook
first
and
then
you
communicate
it
and
that's
allowed
us
to
kind
of
have
a
lid
living
breathing
handbook
that
that's
so
essential
to
that
success,
and
that's
that's
not
intuitive.
That
will
not
happen.
B
Naturally,
that
will
not
happen,
because
you've
wrote
down
that
it
has
to
happen
that
takes
kind
of
constant,
reminding
like
hey,
that's
great,
that
you're
making
that
change,
but
should
be
in
the
handbook
before
you
communicate
it.
That's
the
thing
I've
been
focusing
on
very
early
and
I.
Think
it's
there's
something
really
hard
to
get
back.
If
you're,
bigger.
B
A
All
right
well
right,
we're
at
time.
Thank
you
guys
very
much
for
coming
and
I
want
to
especially
thank
our
team
from
General
Catalyst,
in
particular
on
DES,
for
helping
put
this
together,
as
well
as
a
team
from
gitlab
Darren
in
and
other
folks.
This
was
an
amazing,
endeavor
and
I
hope
you
audience!
You
took
a
lot
away
from
this.
There's
a
lot
more
to
come.
This
has
become
such
an
interesting
burgeoning
topic.
You
know
we're
gonna,
see
a
lot
more
along
lines
of
blog
posts
and
a
whole
variety
of
information.