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Founder of GitLab battles cancer by founding companies

Founder of GitLab battles cancer by founding companies

bob_theslob646

Comments (141)

  • dbcooper
    For those interested in radioligand therapy against FAP antigen expressing cancer, Ratio Therapeutics is recruiting for a Phase 1/2 Open-label Study (NCT07156565).Eligibility requires history of relapse and refractory soft tissue sarcoma.https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07156565?tab=researcher#...
  • appstorelottery
    This is the most supremely motivating post I've seen in a long time. I know what it is to be diagnosed with cancer, being rushed to surgery - it's amazing how quickly the medical-industrial complex can move once you've got a diagnosis (at least in Australia). I had a short period of contemplating terminally, because cancer claimed the life of most of my family. Thankfully, after surgery it was gone.To see Sid use his motivation and resources to solve his own problem is the core message (IMHO) of the hacker community.It makes me look at my own problem (Peyronies) in a different light; a disease which has affected my life in ways which cannot be overstated. Yet, all the money in the world right now can't fix Peyronies - yet in reading his journey my mind has been changed about this.His slide title: "I'll talk to anyone, I'll go anywhere, and I can be there anytime" is certainly the mindset!Thanks for posting this - I'm inspired to take similar action for Peyronie's. Anything is possible.
  • plasma
    I think you’d find Dr. Richard Scolyer’s story really relatable. He’s an Australian cancer expert who, along with his colleague, is using himself as "patient zero" for a world-first treatment for his own brain cancer. They’re basically doing the research and the treatment in parallel to find a new way forward: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-30/dr-richard-scolyer-sp...
  • sytse
    Thanks for posting this. Happy to answer questions!
  • menno-dot-ai
    There's a crazy story in here where Sytse invested in a click chemistry cancer research startup (Shasqi) in 2017 and ends up becoming a customer six years later.I sincerely hope it works out for him.
  • allpratik
    Wish the best for Sid! My father was unlucky with his TP53 mutation which resulted in AEL and he passed away suddenly. 100% fit to vanishing away straight in 8 months. It was pretty rough for me especially to see how these doctors (most of them but bot all) are so non-experimental in their attitude.Sid is right, Staying alive is our own job and definitely what he is doing will give him and his loved ones enough hope to get through this and sometimes he eventually he will get through.
  • fumeux_fume
    The linked post about his treatment is basically a vanity article; low in useful information, but high in vague assertions and platitudes. There's also a link to a post griping about the red tape someone experienced while trying to self-treat their dog's cancer that's weird. I clearly live in a different world than these people.
  • hubrix
    This story and the guy curing his dogs cancer leads me to believe what's missing is a jurisdiction that allows people with money to do whatever experiments they want/need to move medicine forward.
  • jnpnj
    I remember steve yegge complaining about using brain and computing so sell clicks. I wonder how many people would do the same as Sid these days.
  • bfbsoundetch
    A very motivating post. What he said “It became my own job to keep myself alive. Nobody else was going to do it for me at this point” really stayed with me. It’s powerful to see someone take that level of responsibility in such a difficult situation. I also appreciate how his ability to fund his own treatment can end up benefiting the broader community. Wishing him the best. Cancer is awful, and it just took one of my professor life just a few months ago.
  • markphip
    It was hard to tell how he is doing and whether any of these treatments are working, but I sincerely hope for a good outcome for him. He has always seen like a genuinely good person. Cancer sucks.
  • 101008
    This is wonderful but I feel bad for all the people who doesnt have the resources to go through the same. For 99.9% of the population, a diagnostic like his means a really different outcome. I know he is trying to fix this with his investments and companies, but sharing this story could be seen as "boasting"... "I went through this and I survived, while your loved ones wouldn't"
  • andybak
    Took me a while to parse the title
  • storus
    Maybe it's time for him to give the metabolic cancer theory a go and try to bump up his mitochondrial function as much as possible? It's practically untestable due to science testing all compounds in isolation instead of a cocktail over longer period of time that can't be properly controlled even if it might be true. Every single cancer cell has a damaged mitochondria and often switching it properly on leads to cancer cell's apoptosis. He should also take desloratadine as some Swedish hospital observational study showed a significantly increased survivability on all tumor types with it. Some people had success with the combination of DCA, R-ALA, B1 HCl megadoses >2g, CoQ10 + PQQ, glucosidic astaxanthin, nattokinase/serrapeptase/lumbrokinase, low-dose aspirin, pancreatic enzymes and lactoferrin, with complete removal of fructose from the diet (as the cancer explosion can be correlated with years when fructose started getting introduced into diet in large quantities).
  • anderber
    That's pretty amazing. I believe he's also a founder/investor in Kilo Code which I use and really like.
  • ashwinnair99
    Most people slow down when something like this hits. Starting companies is a very specific way of refusing to.
  • grokcodec
  • asim
    Kudos to Sid for trying it and hopefully it benefits others in the long run. Not everyone has the money, will or commitment to do this. My own father died with a battle of myeloma, a blood and bone marrow cancer, after 2 years, it wasn't the disease specifically that got him, it was the secondary conditions that caused irregular heart rhythm and eventually one day it stopped and no one was there to help. 2 stem cell transplants, rounds of chemo, almost full failure of kidneys. The cancer did its job. Ultimately what I'm saying, the medicine gives us time, but no one beats death. Maybe the treatment gives us time to come to terms with that, hopefully my dad did. I was in total denial. Anyway good luck to you Sid.All the best to all the cancer survivors out there, and to the loved ones who lost them.
  • nextos
  • JohnTHaller
    Love seeing Sid posting about this and taking the initiative he has. I wish I'd had the resources and time (and abilities of Sid) when my Dad got ALS considering the relatively poor state of ALS treatments.
  • Axoncode
    I hope he will feel better.
  • dsign
    When it comes to cancer, there is an awful lot of legacy thinking and "way things are done" taking lives. Starting with the so called "standard of care", which makes patient lose precious treatment windows while they wait for a possible miracle from "first-line drugs" from thirty and forty years ago which frankly are not that good. But it's hard to reform because the fraction of people who ever think about cancer as a problem to be solved is quite small; and it ought to be far larger, given that cancer is the second or even first leading cause of death across much of the world. I wish Elliot Hershberg every success.
  • kaapipo
    Had the pleasure of meeting him a little over a year ago. A super cool and down-to-earth dude.I hope him all the best.
  • vldszn
    Wishing him a speed recovery
  • dominotw
    so many of these now. it is so sad and scary.been thinking about prenuvo all the time now but not sure if thats going to help or make me more paranoid.
  • dangus
    Sounds like some lame ass tech founder bullshit if I’ll be honest.If I had cancer the last think I’d be thinking would be to make a slide deck about it.Can these robot people come back down to earth and have a genuine human experience for a chance? Not everything has to be framed in the view of a startup company or a data analysis exercise.Maybe focus on spending time with your family and friends? If they still like you after years of being an insufferable tech bro.
  • goatlove
    I found another story of using AI for a new vaccine the other day . https://x.com/paul_conyngham/status/2036940410363535823. Its interesting and motivating to see how people are using new technology to save lives regardless of their totally professional background and how informations are useful if you use it the right way. I wish him the best.
  • SilentM68
    He is lucky to have the resources and determination to start his own companies and tackle the problem himself. I wish the majority of tech bros would act in a similar fashion.The sad truth is, that in most countries, health systems do not allocate sufficient resources or financial support to doctors to correctly diagnose medical conditions accurately as it is not in their economic, interest to do so.
  • moralestapia
    "maximum diagnostics"Love this! This is the way! And he proved it correct.I remember one time I mentioned this in a casual conversation only to get back very low IQ responses with some fatuous arguments that the tests caused the disease or something.There was this one guy Tomas something (can't remember the last name, a weird one), doesn't matter, what I do remember is how he was desperately trying to explain how more tests led to more diagnoses and that was ... somehow bad? Lmao.Something I've observed, I've lived in Canada/US and Latin America, in the former you have to wait months for a CT scan, in the latter you can get it the same day you need it. If the "third-world" can do it, there's no excuse.
  • twostorytower
    Really awesome that he was able to do this and give back, but none of this would have been possible without his unfathomable wealth and access.
  • CommenterPerson
    Hmmm .. where have we heard this story before? Tech bro tries alternative treatments for cancer .. somebody at Apple?I wish him all the best and good luck. Maybe in 50, 100 years we'll have more definitive cures for cancer. Till then it's mostly slash, burn and poison, unfortunately.
  • parsimo2010
    (slightly sarcastic) So we should give rich people diseases so they are incentivized to fund medical research?Sid seems like a decent person. I'm glad that he's able to push cancer research forward on his own. Hopefully his work will make things better for everyone else with bone cancer. Seems like that is well under way. (and I guess I should recognize that he funded a cancer treatment company years before he knew he had cancer further reinforcing that he's not purely self-interested)I'm a little melancholy that my aunt, who was a millionaire just not a mega-millionaire, didn't have the resources to do this before she died of cancer. She was able to pay for a high standard of care, but couldn't single-handedly fund teams of scientists to work on her case. I know she would have done so if she could, her biggest regret was not being around longer to see her grandkids grow up and she was very driven to watch over her family.It is a little sad that the world's medical research apparatuses couldn't seem to fund this on their own. Not just the US medical system, but Europe and China also don't have better treatments until a rich guy came along. It seems that it's not for a lack of ideas, just that some of these ideas couldn't be funded. Is it that this type of bone cancer is super rare and the cost just isn't worth it? Or are we just under-funding at the level that several ideas with a likely positive ROI aren't able to get funded?