Some of the reactions are understandable, but I expect most people on HN to be able to separate unrelated issues like these. Some of the comments here are absolutely unnecessarily hostile.
Not that this excuses anything, but maybe it'll help explain it: This interview was recorded a little while before the incident when we were unaware of some of the issues we have in process. Now that we're aware, we are working on correcting these things.
But you're right, the timing of this piece was probably not ideal.
When I say process, I mean some of our operational processes like making sure backups work. There was an incident with data loss last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13537052
Like any company, we have our own business operations issues too but it's still one of the best jobs I've ever had. We're pretty open about our flaws, to the point where the CEO even has a page that lists his out: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/ceo-pref...
Companies are run by people and consequently they're fallible. Every company makes mistakes occasionally. Gitlab handled theirs incredibly well. A more opaque company would have kept the problem, and the experience they earned handling it, to themselves. Gitlab's openness means we can all learn a little from their event. I think that's great. I wish more companies shared more when these things happen.
> A more opaque company would have kept the problem, and the experience they earned handling it, to themselves.
I liked their transparency a lot too! But it's neither possible nor acceptable to keep six hours of data loss and eighteen hours of continuous downtime "to yourself".
That was not our intention. This piece was recorded before the outage. We should asked to delay publication until after the postmortem was published. That would be the marketing 101 lesson, first show you corrected your mistake instead of talking about something else.
