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Don't penalize GitLab too harshly for having public issues and discussion. The obvious fix will be to just not have all this public, which is what all other com

Don't penalize GitLab too harshly for having public issues and discussion. The obvious fix will be to just not have all this public, which is what all other companies of non-trivial size do. I think the CFO's comment was illuminating, but not really worse than I would expect from any misc C-level in any industry.

ohazi 7y ago
That's a very valid point, and I don't want to go too overboard in my criticism. However I don't think my assessment is wrong. If he really was the one pushing for this decision then I think he should be fired. It's not just about getting it so wrong when he should have known better, it's about ignoring all of the internal push-back from employees who were trying to prevent him from fucking it up the first place. Bullies in the C-suite should be removed. > but not really worse than I would expect from any misc C-level in any industry. This is my take as well, unfortunately, but I think it needs to change. There are loads of competent people who can perform these executive jobs. The bar should be higher.
- prepend 7y ago
  I don’t think making an executive decision is necessarily “bullying.” The nice thing about public comments and development is that you would see some non-hypothetical evidence of such action. I don’t think it’s unnatural for an OSS product dev team to think this way. I don’t like that they implemented it, but I think it’s positive they rolled it back. Firing a CEO for such a situation will result in worse software, I think. It won’t make the next CEO less likely to make a dumb mistake. But it will make them less likely to be public or to roll back changes. If the consequence of a fairly minor mistake (given GitLab’s history of super smart decisions in the past 10 years) is firing, then management will make sure nothing is ever considered a mistake again.
  - DoctorOetker 7y ago
    >then management will make sure nothing is ever considered a mistake again. but it's ultimately the customers who decide if something was a mistake by switching to different products... hence company foots the bill
- notimetorelax 7y ago
  I think you’re making an assumption that there are executive level people who never make such mistakes. I like to look at this from a different angle - is this person capable of taking feedback and correcting their course. If yes, then you can work with them.

ohazi 7y ago

That's a very valid point, and I don't want to go too overboard in my criticism. However I don't think my assessment is wrong. If he really was the one pushing for this decision then I think he should be fired. It's not just about getting it so wrong when he should have known better, it's about ignoring all of the internal push-back from employees who were trying to prevent him from fucking it up the first place. Bullies in the C-suite should be removed. > but not really worse than I would expect from any misc C-level in any industry. This is my take as well, unfortunately, but I think it needs to change. There are loads of competent people who can perform these executive jobs. The bar should be higher.

prepend 7y ago
I don’t think making an executive decision is necessarily “bullying.” The nice thing about public comments and development is that you would see some non-hypothetical evidence of such action. I don’t think it’s unnatural for an OSS product dev team to think this way. I don’t like that they implemented it, but I think it’s positive they rolled it back. Firing a CEO for such a situation will result in worse software, I think. It won’t make the next CEO less likely to make a dumb mistake. But it will make them less likely to be public or to roll back changes. If the consequence of a fairly minor mistake (given GitLab’s history of super smart decisions in the past 10 years) is firing, then management will make sure nothing is ever considered a mistake again.
- DoctorOetker 7y ago
  >then management will make sure nothing is ever considered a mistake again. but it's ultimately the customers who decide if something was a mistake by switching to different products... hence company foots the bill
notimetorelax 7y ago
I think you’re making an assumption that there are executive level people who never make such mistakes. I like to look at this from a different angle - is this person capable of taking feedback and correcting their course. If yes, then you can work with them.