Thank you, GitHub

This morning, I sent the following post to the GitHub team. TL;DR: I’m moving on to my next adventure, and Thomas Dohmke (currently Chief Product Officer) will be GitHub’s next CEO. I will become Chairman Emeritus, which fulfills my lifelong ambition of having a title in Latin. My heartfelt thanks to every Hubber and every developer who makes GitHub what it is, every day.

Thank you, GitHub

Every day, millions of developers around the world come to GitHub to transform their ideas into code. Across industries, time zones, skill levels, toolsets, tabs, spaces – being a developer means the next solution to a big problem is just a few keystrokes away. At GitHub, our vision is to be the home for all developers, and for the last three years I’ve had the privilege of calling GitHub home too. I’ve spent the majority of my life building in open source, and at GitHub I’ve been able to work side-by-side with the passionate, talented team of Hubbers, and our amazing community. Serving this global community of developers as the CEO of GitHub has been the honor of a lifetime.

I am incredibly proud of what we have all achieved together. GitHub has gone from a place to store and share code to a complete developer platform. GitHub Actions has become the #1 CI service, used by popular open source projects and enterprises alike. Codespaces and Copilot show us the cloud-native and AI-infused future of software development. Discussions is used by over half of the top 100 open source communities on GitHub and Sponsors is enabling developers to earn millions of dollars for their contributions. Our new products like GitHub Advanced Security and CodeQL, private repo secret scanning, Dependabot, and our public advisory database have helped secure the software supply chain we all depend on.

Today, we are proud to say that more than 73 million developers are building the future of software on GitHub, we count 84% of the Fortune 100 as our customers, and every year since the acquisition our business has grown more than the last.

With all that we’ve accomplished in mind, and more than five great years at Microsoft under my belt, I’ve decided it’s time for me to go back to my startup roots. What drives me is enabling builders to create the future. I’ve loved working with and learning from developers who are building new tools and new projects, solving thorny problems, and creating magic out of code. That’s why I’m moving on to my next adventure: to support, advise, and invest in the founders and developers who are creating the future with technology and tackling some of the biggest opportunities of our day.

And so today, I am excited to announce that effective November 15th, Thomas Dohmke (@ashtom), GitHub’s Chief Product Officer, will become CEO and I will become Chairman Emeritus.

Thomas has served developers for decades and played a pivotal role in making the GitHub acquisition a success. He has built software for industries ranging from insurance software and automotive to mobile apps. In 2011, he co-founded HockeyApp to solve his own pain points as a developer. At GitHub, he led the work that made private repositories free for developers and solved hundreds of customer pain points. He has built a roadmap that ensures our customers are getting the features they need with a platform that can support them for years to come. I couldn’t be more excited for the future of GitHub under his leadership.

The primary feeling I have about the last three years is gratitude, and all of you are the reason why. The ingenuity and enthusiasm you have brought to GitHub every day has made us all better. I am grateful for the community of developers who have trusted us, shared feedback, and been with us every step of the way. I am grateful to Satya Nadella and to Scott Guthrie for their support for the GitHub team, belief in the power of our platform, and for their mentorship. Above all, I want to say thank you to everyone at GitHub and to every developer on the internet who gave me a chance at this awesome responsibility.

The way we build software is at an inflection point. Development itself is moving to the cloud. AI is revolutionizing the way we code. Software security is global security. Open source permeates nearly every product – digital or physical. Developers are building the future as we type. And I am confident in the GitHub team and Thomas to meet every new challenge and opportunity ahead. Thank you for the energy and creativity you bring to work every day that makes GitHub GitHub. I can’t wait to see what we all build in the years to come.

— Nat

Written by

Nat Friedman

@nat