Honestly, it's the end of an era for Gitlab it seems to me. The CFO's views are going to become the new norm, and I doubt there's much the CEO will do to course correct (since this latest issue seemed to involve him with a big client contract?). I expect another "we're sorry, we won't do it again!" as we've gotten the past few times, but I am trusting those less and less.

The general direction of GitLab can also be steered by employees. They could organize, publish a statement, and refuse to check in for work on Monday.

It all depends on how many GitLab employees believe strongly enough in these values, and how many are willing to take some risks and defend the company and its values.

I've thought about this a lot. We could, but we are all literally terrified for our jobs and of retaliation.

> we are all literally terrified for our jobs

Life as an employee shouldn't be like that. I think GitLab is in a unique situation since a lot of y'all are remote and there aren't a lot of comparable positions available.

We need more remote working opportunities, because when there are just a few, the companies that allow it are able to string along their employees.

Absolutely. I think this is one of the strongest things keeping people here. The golden handcuffs. Everything sucks, but our situation is unique. Many positions have lots of personal freedom such as flexible working hours. You can work from wherever, you can travel. That's hard to leave.

If you're not averse to working for startups there are a lot of opportunities out there. I actually got rejected by gitlab and then got an offer from a startup for more money than I would have gotten at gitlab. There's quite a few remote first places out there too like Duck Duck Go, Mattermost, Zapier, Auth0, Automattic, Stripe just added a remote division but not remote first, Invision, just off the top of my head. I get changing jobs is full of uncertainty but don't sell yourself short either, the market has changed quite a bit probably since you were last actively looking.

It is not my experience: I work remotely and my company is treating me very well as it's hard to find people with my skill level in their region of the world.

There are A LOT of remote jobs. As someone who just went through a job hunt for remote positions, there was pretty much a constant supply of opportunities. However, most of them are startups. There is definitely a lack of established remote first companies with 200+ employees.

I completely understand, retaliation is a real possibility in such cases. This is why it's important to find a safe way to organize, and for a considerable number of employees to protest.

> This is why it's important to find a safe way to organize, and for a considerable number of employees to protest.

Like a union? That could enforce a contract against management and protect its workers with a grievance process? And allow workers to strike against management practices without retaliatory fear?

Note that your employer can't terminate you for attempting to unionize in the US. I could understand those with equity being fearful of championing this (and possibly losing their lottery ticket), but if you have no equity, you have nothing to lose.

I've considered this as well. They can't fire you but they'll find a way. See what happened to some of the Kickstarter people for example.

And that's worse than continuing to work in fear? Not judging, a decision everyone has to make for themselves. All jobs are temporary. Good luck, always be creating a paper trail that you can provide to an attorney or regulator, and CYA.

> And that's worse than continuing to work in fear?

My guess is people are just biding their time until they can find other jobs and quit.

>Note that your employer can't terminate you for attempting to unionize in the US. I could understand those with equity being fearful of championing this (and possibly losing their lottery ticket), but if you have no equity, you have nothing to lose.

They have a job to lose. Which starts to matter when you have a family, kids and mortgage to support. Then there's health insurance and possibly having to switch all your doctors.

More broadly, if you think your next job will be better then you should just leave. If you don't then you have something to lose.

Perhaps you like your job but simply want better worker protections than you currently have (because of the existing power imbalance between workers and management, at will employment, etc). Forming a union is a legitimate strategy to arrive at that end state.

Telling someone to simply move on if their working conditions are suboptimal, to have another poor soul be put into that slot, is counterproductive in aggregate (but I can understand certain parties might prefer that outcome, particularly management), especially if someone would rather put the effort into improving their existing workplace for the benefit of existing colleagues as well as eventual new hires.

> They have a job to lose. Which starts to matter when you have a family, kids and mortgage to support. Then there's health insurance and possibly having to switch all your doctors.

It is illegal for your employer to threaten you, intimidate you, or retaliate against you (including termination) for attempting to form a union. Communicating the above as management could be inferred as a threat.

You're totally correct. It is such a hard decision tbh and one I often think about, especially after the past few weeks. Would losing my job for trying to do the right thing be worth it? Could I even make it happen? Are there other GitLab team members out there thinking the same way that would be willing to stand with me? Its kinda overwhelming honestly, but I do absolutely agree.

> We could, but we are all literally terrified for our jobs and of retaliation.

This is the first time I'm hearing this, and the people I work with certainly don't feel like htis. I suggest not saying things like "we all", when that clearly is not true.

For some reason a comment from an alleged Gitlab employee on your post has been nuked and is showing as "dead" (as well as their other comment in this thread). What's up with that? It's a new throwaway account but I don't see any reason for it to be shadowbanned.

> The general direction of GitLab can also be steered by employees. They could organize, publish a statement, and refuse to check in for work on Monday.

But then they'll have to deal with the whinging of Hackernews about needlessly bringing politics into work.

Perhaps but I have my doubts about it being THAT specific CFOs views. I still believe somebody will be "moving on" due to how bad that whole thing was bungled.

How hard is it to understand that people do not want to be tracked? How many times do we have to say it before they understand? Should we paraphrase it for them? Explain it like they're five?

let them (those companies) die in their own toxicity.

I don't want to pick on you, but this is the second post in which you seem to imply the overall situation is better than what I see. "Let those companies die" seems to imply they're a minority, whereas from what I can tell, 99% of companies do just what that CFO is suggesting. How can we possibly expect the deaths of all of them?

employees are not married to their company. when I talk about them I talk about those who are in control of the company. those who are left behind can look for another and better opportunity. which is better than continuing in a toxic environment anyway.

glad we are in the IT business, where finding another job is pretty easy. this does probably not apply to other sectors.

> those who are left behind can look for another and better opportunity. which is better than continuing in a toxic environment anyway.

That's what I'm wondering: what you call a toxic environment seems rather common in my experience. The execs make the decisions, and the developers are lucky if they even get to know what was decided. So while they can certainly look, I find it weird to be confident that they will actually find somewhere better. Gitlab just seems to be reverting to the average.

Paul Machle. Paul Machle should resign from Gitlab.

Unfortunately the most blinding assertive people are usually the ones that never admit to their mistakes.

Yes, I'd say the C suite position represents a fundamental flaw in the culture from the top down. The C suite is a detriment.

I also expect them to close up their internal discussions soon.