Sytse Sijbrandij, GitLab's CEO, announced he has cancer and is coping by launching new open-core companies. Is this the ultimate grindset or pure madness?
Imagine getting a C-word diagnosis from your doctor. Most of us would immediately pack our bags, touch grass, and maybe travel the world to burn through our savings. But Sytse Sijbrandij, the top-tier mage and Founder of GitLab, said "f*ck it." He chose to battle cancer by doing the most unexpected thing: spawning new startups.
So here's the tea: Sytse dropped a heavy blog post announcing his cancer diagnosis. Normally, the human brain automatically switches to "power saving mode" upon hearing such news. But instead of retiring on a beach with his massive stacks of cash, Sytse decided to start more companies.
Yes, you heard that right. He literally stated that grinding, building, and funding new open-core projects distracts him from the brutal reality of treatments and gives him a sense of purpose. Instead of whining, he's building teams and shipping products. His hardware might be failing, but he’s just spinning up more VMs to handle the psychological load. Absolute madlad behavior.
His post pulled over 700 upvotes on Hacker News, and naturally, the dev community split into a few distinct camps:
At the end of the day, Sytse proves that having a massive, consuming project can be the ultimate psychological armor. A big goal can sometimes be the best painkiller.
But a quick reality check for us mere mortals: DO NOT blindly copy this mindset. Everyone's system specs are different. Sytse has unlimited resources and top-tier support. If you are grinding 60-hour weeks and your body starts throwing 500 Internal Server Errors (back pain, insomnia, extreme stress), go see a doctor and take a break. Don't push to prod when your personal server is literally on fire. Back up your health first, guys!
Source: Hacker News | Sytse's Blog
