From GitLab to Kilo Code (Interview)

What It Covers

Sid Sijbrandij, GitLab founder, shares his bone cancer journey since 2022, including experimental treatments across three continents, single-cell sequencing diagnostics, and launching six biotech companies plus Kilo, an open-source all-in-one agentic coding platform.

Key Questions Answered

• •Parallel Treatment Strategy: When doctors declared standard care exhausted, Sijbrandij combined multiple experimental treatments simultaneously rather than sequentially, prioritizing cure over research reproducibility. He assembled a tumor board including pathologists to ensure safe drug combinations that don't overload organs like kidneys.
• •FAP-Targeted Radioactive Therapy: Single-cell sequencing revealed high fibroblast content in his tumor, enabling targeted treatment in Germany using FAP binders combined with lutetium radioactive elements. This achieved 60% necrosis and 20% shrinkage with zero detectable side effects, detaching tumor from spinal cord to enable surgical removal.
• •Maximal Diagnostics Approach: Fresh-freezing tumor samples instead of standard FFPE preservation enables running hundreds of additional diagnostic tests later. Sijbrandij traveled to China for first-available B7-H3 scans, discovering highest expression levels seen in 20 patients, which directly informed drug development modifications to protect liver function.
• •Kilo's Multi-Model Architecture: The platform supports over 500 models including eight of ten most popular being free to use, charging exact list price for paid models without markup. Users create profiles combining specific models with custom prompts, enabling teams to share optimized agents for tasks like Java upgrades.
• •Agent Productivity Multiplier: Kilo engineers ship at speeds equivalent to seven-to-eight person teams from two years ago by parallelizing work across multiple AI agents. One engineer can manage multiple agents working simultaneously on separate tasks with small context windows, reducing costs while increasing speed and preventing context loss.