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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

#91

Post by crote »

trhway wrote: post #54

>Software has been the force multiplier behind nearly every business transformation of the last two decades. The constraint was the cost and time of producing and managing it. That constraint is collapsing. As the cost of producing software collapses, demand for it will expand. Last year, the developer platform market used to be measured in tens of dollars per user per month, this year it is hundreds/user/month and h…

> The point here is that they get delivered on.

... so where's the delivery?

I have no doubt that AI is making some programmers quite a bit more productive. But if it is even 10% as good as all the marketing claims, we should be seeing an explosion of new tech startups, and a huge increase in feature shipping rate and number of bugs closed. Why isn't this obviously happening? Where's the next Dotcom Boom or Cloud SaaS Explosion?

What I am seeing instead is million-line AI slop pet projects whose sole "user" is its developer, and large companies falling over each other to enshittify their products. If there's no genuine user value being delivered, who's going to pay for those thousand-dollar-per-month developer tools?

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

#92

Post by vkou »

bob001 wrote: post #55
Havoc wrote: post #37

>removing up to three layers of management in some functions so leaders are closer to the work. I wish them the best of luck with that plan. Middle management is where the institutional knowledge sits on how to actually get shit done despite challenges & broken processes/systems. It's an even worse plan than eliminating juniors.

Middle management is also why there’s so many broken processes and challenges in the first place.

Middle management exists to turn conflicting marching orders from the directors into less conflicting marching orders for the line workers, and to keep any negative feedback on how fucking stupid the directors are from ever reaching them.

They don't cause the broken processes. They are the symptom of a broken executive process. A fish rots from the head down, and the people at the top get exactly the kind of company that they ask for.

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

#93

Post by mathgladiator »

madamelic wrote: post #51
tdb7893 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Places I've worked that actually seem to have inclusion as a core value I am not sure if you had implied it but that would align with my experience as well: places that tout diversity were the worst places to work (as someone who is seen as 'diverse') while the ones that treated everyone the same and had the expectation everyone pulls their weight. I absolutely despise people treating me differently because of who…

I love wildly beyond mild inappropriate jokes as they are a litmus test for a thinking person. The people that take things way too sensitive are a net drag and buzz kill for doing the grinding required. It goes both ways too. I love it when people are agressive with me. So, by freedom of association, cliques form and I have no problem with nepotism because the ultimate currency in life is trust.

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

#94

Post by echelon »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #30
Animats wrote: 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.

Also no more Transparency.

If they're asking you to do more for less pay and with fewer coworkers to help, don't feel bad if the company code turns into unmaintainable, unintelligible garbage. They can't really stop you. It's just AI. Something is going to have to give.

Every IC ought to use the present day as the opportunity to build a nimble competitor to their old employer (or whatever industry incumbents they want).

They're literally setting themselves up for this.

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

#95

Post by u_fucking_dork »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #90
Animats wrote: 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.

I thought that the GitHub degrading would be an opportunity for them to be an alternative more focused in stability and a customer centric approach . But it's just more slop

Why would they want to become the target for free users vibe coded slopware? I don’t think many of them are converting to paying customers.

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

#96

Post by browningstreet »

groby_b wrote: post #71
tdb7893 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Lived values need to be discussed sometimes…

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

#97

Post by janalsncm »

IshKebab wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: 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.

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…

On the one hand, yeah, you should respect people who are different from you. On the other hand, this is really so obvious that I doubt elevating it to a “core value” makes much of a difference. Are there marginal people who wouldn’t respect diversity unless it was a core value?

Then again I don’t even know what it means for something to be a core value. What is the practical upshot of “collaboration” being a core value of a company? Were people not collaborating before?

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

#98

Post by u_fucking_dork »

ai_fry_ur_brain wrote: post #77
skrrtww wrote: 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.

Calling it text autocomplete is played out and really just makes you look bad at this point.

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

#99

Post by Trasmatta »

saganus wrote: post #73
Trasmatta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah that's the rub. You have the responsibility for the thing you "own" but not true choice or control. Responsibility without authority. It sucks.

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

#100

Post by echelon »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #64
Animats wrote: 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.

Basically "screw any part about employees working together do what I say fast". What a shame. I love the AI bros who think utopia is coming, 4 day work weeks, etc. more like "get screwed, work more, for less, in worse environments".

The code and product will turn to shit, and the company won't be able to extract itself from the mud.

Employees tasked with doing 10x more work with less help don't even have to feel bad about it happening. It'll also create employment opportunity in disrupting their old employer.

These companies are willingly signing up to become IBM.

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