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GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

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Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#71
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm firmly not in Trump's anti-DEI camp but I have seen what can happen when you make it one of your core values. You can end up with a lot of people talking about it a lot, lots of meetings and initiatives rather than doing actual work. And usually those don't go anywhere because the people doing it don't have any power to actually change things. It's unlikely that a company like Gitlab really needs anything changin…

Places I've worked that actually seem to have inclusion as a core value are great places to work and seem to have high functioning teams. My impression mostly though is more that it was never really a value for management but they wasted a bunch of time talking about it. In general any mismatch between stated values and actual values has been awful to deal with and is a red flag for places to work.

That's the thing - you can have it as a lived value, or you can have HR run programs. Very few places have/had both. Given the choice, I'd pick door #1.

(Saying this as a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion, lest there's confusion)

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#72

Oh and it won't be done until June 1st, so the employees can have some anxiety until then. As a treat.

Oh and it won't be done until June 1st, so the employees can have some anxiety until then. As a treat.

Plenty of time to whip up a dead man's switch.

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#73
post #17

Their old CREDIT values: Collaboration, Results for Customers, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Iteration, and Transparency. New values: Speed with Quality, Ownership Mindset, Customer Outcomes. In other words, work harder, not smarter, and no more DEI.

> Ownership Mindset Every company I've worked at hammers the "ownership" idea and I hate it so much. It's how they drive a culture where employees are expected to invest themselves into "owning" a problem space that can be taken from them at any moment. It's how they trick you into doing extra work that's not in your job description. Unless you're ACTUALLY an owner, don't be fooled by an "ownership" value.

Conversely, you have "full ownership" and have the ability to decide the direction, as long as it's the same direction as your higher-ups have decided.

All the responsibility is still yours though.

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#74

Lots of interesting information here: >The agentic era affords GitLab the largest opportunity in our history as a company, and we're making the structural and strategic decisions to meet it >Operationally, we grew into a shape that was right for the last era and isn't right for this one To meet their largest opportunity ever, they believe they need less resources. I'm not sure I understand how that follows. >We're re…

> 8 layers of management is a lot of management

Seems like a fair assessment. Maybe they should start by getting rid of the people who put that structure in place?

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#75
post #17

Their old CREDIT values: Collaboration, Results for Customers, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Iteration, and Transparency. New values: Speed with Quality, Ownership Mindset, Customer Outcomes. In other words, work harder, not smarter, and no more DEI.

> Ownership Mindset Every company I've worked at hammers the "ownership" idea and I hate it so much. It's how they drive a culture where employees are expected to invest themselves into "owning" a problem space that can be taken from them at any moment. It's how they trick you into doing extra work that's not in your job description. Unless you're ACTUALLY an owner, don't be fooled by an "ownership" value.

Owner is the one who gets the added value assigned to. At least according to the Das Kapital. So the check is easy - do you see the added value flowing onto your account or not.

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#76
post #13

With it’s current AI setup GitLab still couldn’t make anything that could be called great in UX so I can’t wait to see what they can do by eliminating the remaining human factor. Can’t personally wait seeing tickets like these [0] open for months with bots telling you that everything will be alright. [0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/work_items/588806

Small aside, if they're dropping their transparency company value does that mean that issue won't be visible anymore? Is that the future for Gitlab?

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#77
post #11

A lot of the conclusions they're drawing in this post about the "agentic era" seem quite misguided and some don't really seem to make sense. I have no doubt GitLab has too many employees and can benefit from being a more focused company, but it's tiring reading these layoff posts so chock full of buzzwords. I guess they're desperately hoping if they prognosticate about AI enough it will placate the investors.

Let these people keep betting their companies, futures and net competency on text autocomplete. The future is bright for me and everyone else that isn't falling for it.

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#78
post #43

Wow gitlab. Right when everyone was looking to see if you could lead with all the fails at github, you basically said "We're going to throw our source at ChatGPT and see what happens"

Right? I was seriously considering migrating everything in our company from GitHub to GitLab. Now I'm seriously considering self hosting our git instead.

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#79

Oh and it won't be done until June 1st, so the employees can have some anxiety until then. As a treat.

At least they are honest about it: > The planning is happening openly, including a voluntary separation window. That creates real uncertainty for our team over the next few weeks, but we believe the outcome will be better for it. No good way to execute lay-offs, my preference would be to do it like a band-aid. What use is it to do it in open unless they plan on having gladiatorial matches to keep your job. Otherwise…

sort of a Michael Scott approach of asking people to quit so they don't have to fire anyone.

Re: GitLab announces workforce reduction and end of their CREDIT values

#80

GitLab's old values are for now still listed in their handbook: > GitLab’s six core values are Collaboration, Results for Customers, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Iteration, and Transparency, and together they spell the CREDIT we give each other by assuming good intent. We react to them with values emoji and they are made actionable below. Since those terms don't speak for themselves individually, it'…

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