GitLab Act 2: Still an Open Book

GitLab's 'Act 2' announcement by CEO Bill Staples goes beyond layoffs and AI pivots — it raises deeper questions about whether the company can reinvent itself for the agentic era without losing the cultural infrastructure that defined it. GitLab was built on radical transparency: a public handbook, open org charts, and a CREDIT values framework that functioned as operational infrastructure, not just HR slogans. Former GitLab evangelist Brendan O'Leary warns that retiring transparency as a core principle risks removing the cultural scaffolding that made the company work. Reddit practitioners are skeptical, questioning whether AI language is being used to justify workforce reductions. The author argues that the disciplines GitLab pioneered — documentation, async coordination, shared context — may actually be more critical in an AI-native world, not less, and expresses cautious optimism that GitLab can navigate this transition while remaining an open book.