The GitLab way: Kindness, transparency, and short toes | David DeSanto (CPO)

David DeSanto is the chief product officer of GitLab, which is the largest remote-only company in the world. They share many of their team meetings on YouTube, and they’ve grown from being an open-source code management product competing with GitHub to a multi-product platform that covers security, compliance, continuous integration, project management, and deployment tools, many of which are infused with AI magic. In our conversation, we discuss:
• How GitLab operationalizes transparency
• The philosophy behind recording and sharing team meetings on YouTube
• Their extensive public employee handbook
• GitLab’s core value of having “short toes”
• Challenges and advice for doing remote work well
• Strategies for ensuring effective communication in a remote work environment
• GitLab’s breadth-over-depth strategy
• The company’s unique approach to AI
• The value of using humor in high-stakes conversations

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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) David’s background
(04:20) Maintaining an epic beard
(05:29) Why GitLab publicly shares team meetings
(09:49) The GitLab Handbook
(11:30) GitLab’s issue tracker
(14:29) How to successfully build a culture of transparency
(18:11) Benefits of operating with transparency
(19:55) The value of building in public
(21:53) How GitLab implements their core value of kindness
(25:16) What it means to have “short toes”
(27:41) Other core values
(32:16) Common reasons for not fitting in at GitLab
(34:42) Advice for remote teams
(42:04) Advice for getting into product
(43:52) Advice for PMs who are struggling in a remote world
(48:25) Specific tools that help with remote work
(53:13) Time zones and remote work
(57:18) Breadth-over-depth strategy
(01:04:14) AI at GitLab
(01:13:11) GitLab’s products and solutions
(01:14:54) Lightning round

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

[somaa]

The handbook defines rules of engagement which I absolutely love!

[Cenotph]

He ends his sentences that are not questions with a question tone

[ChrisMoreweb]

Mozilla did this level of operational transparency long before GitLab. There's a good chance that GitLab's approach is a fork of Mozilla, but better executed.

[janedeuber]

I really appreciate this. He was generous to share a lot of URLs regarding the resources of the handbook and the values identification. Would be fantastic if you could put those links in the description of this video. Having a little trouble finding the handbook. Thanks so much for all you do!

[VinnyCarpenter]

Awesome conversation. Thank you very much.

[saber]

after a long time a real value adding podcast instead of cake eater pep talks

[RachelMorrissey-fb]

Is this distributed as a podcast anywhere? Or is it only on Youtube?