GitHub's CEO says AI coding is ‘here to stay’
This is Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge. My guest today is GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. In many ways, GitHub Copilot set off the current AI coding boom. But since Thomas was on the show a year ago, the rise of vibe coding has shifted the buzz to newer platforms like Cursor and Windsurf. As you’ll hear in our conversation, Thomas is thinking a lot about the competition, and GitHub’s role in the future of software development.
Links:
Developers, Reinvented | Thomas Dohmke / GitHub
Developer Odyssey | Thomas Dohmke / GitHub
Why tech is racing to adopt AI coding, with Cursor’s Michael Truell | Decoder
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says AI needs competition to thrive | Decoder
Up to 30 percent of some Microsoft code is now written by AI | Verge
GitHub launches its AI app-making tool in preview | Verge
Microsoft is getting ready for GPT-5 with a new Copilot smart mode | Verge
Zuckerberg: AI will write most Meta code within 18 months | Engadget
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Xander Adams.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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#270 Thomas Dohmke: GitHub CEO Reveals How AI Will Change Coding Forever
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In this episode, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke joins us for a deep dive into the evolution of software development — from decentralized version control to the rise of AI coding agents. With over 150 million developers on GitHub and tools like Copilot rewriting the rules of software engineering, we explore what it really means to build in an AI-native future.
Thomas shares the origin story of Copilot, how GitHub is shifting from human-to-human to human-to-agent collaboration, and why he believes natural language is becoming the universal programming language. We also cover the technical architecture behind Coding Agents, the feedback loop between developers and AI, and what it takes to scale multi-agent systems in the real world.
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(00:00) The Future of AI-Powered Coding
(02:04) Thomas Dohmke's Journey
(05:16) GitHub's Origin Story & Evolution
(08:45) Life Before GitHub: Early Version Control Systems
(10:40) What is Git? And Why GitHub Matters
(12:36) The Birth of GitHub Copilot
(16:17) The Rise of AI Agents
(17:52) How Kids Are Learning to Code with Copilot
(22:38) Can Non-Coders Use Copilot Agents Effectively?
(26:01) What the Coding Agent Actually Does Behind the Scenes
(31:30) The Models Behind GitHub Copilot & Developer Choice
(35:22) How Much Code Is Now Written by AI?
(38:51) GitHub's Innovation Strategy
(41:54) What's Next for GitHub
(45:24) From 150M to 1B Developers: Empowering the World to Build
(47:51) GitHub Universe & Galaxy Events
(49:53) GitHub's Innovation Graph and the Power of Open Collaboration
The present, past and future of GitHub
Supported by Our Partners
• Statsig — The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more.
• Graphite — The AI developer productivity platform.
• Augment Code — AI coding assistant that pro engineering teams love
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GitHub recently turned 17 years old—but how did it start, how has it evolved, and what does the future look like as AI reshapes developer workflows?
In this episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I’m joined by Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub. Thomas has been a GitHub user for 16 years and an employee for 7. We talk about GitHub’s early architecture, its remote-first operating model, and how the company is navigating AI—from Copilot to agents. We also discuss why GitHub hires junior engineers, how the company handled product-market fit early on, and why being a beloved tool can make shipping harder at times.
Other topics we discuss include:
• How GitHub’s architecture evolved beyond its original Rails monolith
• How GitHub runs as a remote-first company—and why they rarely use email
• GitHub’s rigorous approach to security
• Why GitHub hires junior engineers
• GitHub’s acquisition by Microsoft
• The launch of Copilot and how it’s reshaping software development
• Why GitHub sees AI agents as tools, not a replacement for engineers
• And much more!
—
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(02:25) GitHub’s modern tech stack
(08:11) From cloud-first to hybrid: How GitHub handles infrastructure
(13:08) How GitHub’s remote-first culture shapes its operations
(18:00) Former and current internal tools including Haystack
(21:12) GitHub’s approach to security
(24:30) The current size of GitHub, including security and engineering teams
(25:03) GitHub’s intern program, and why they are hiring junior engineers
(28:27) Why AI isn’t a replacement for junior engineers
(34:40) A mini-history of GitHub
(39:10) Why GitHub hit product market fit so quickly
(43:44) The invention of pull requests
(44:50) How GitHub enables offline work
(46:21) How monetization has changed at GitHub since the acquisition
(48:00) 2014 desktop application releases
(52:10) The Microsoft acquisition
(1:01:57) Behind the scenes of GitHub’s quiet period
(1:06:42) The release of Copilot and its impact
(1:14:14) Why GitHub decided to open-source Copilot extensions
(1:20:01) AI agents and the myth of disappearing engineering jobs
(1:26:36) Closing
—
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode:
• AI Engineering in the real world
• The AI Engineering stack
• How Linux is built with Greg Kroah-Hartman
• Stacked Diffs (and why you should know about them)
• 50 Years of Microsoft and developer tools
—
See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast
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GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Copilot and the Future of Software Development
In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald sits down with Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, to talk about the future of software engineering in the age of AI. They discuss how GitHub Copilot was built, why agents are reshaping developer workflows, and what it takes to make tools that are not only powerful but also fun.
Thomas shares his experience leading GitHub through its $7.5B acquisition by Microsoft, the unexpected ways it accelerated innovation, and why developer happiness is crucial to productivity. They explore what still makes human engineers irreplaceable and how the next generation of developers might grow up coding alongside AI.
Follow Thomas Dohmke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtom/
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https://twitter.com/weights_biases
https://www.linkedin.com/company/wandb
Copilot, Agent Mode, and the New World of Dev Tools with GitHub’s CEO Thomas Dohmke
This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad talk with GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke about the rise of AI-powered software development and the success of Copilot. They discuss how Copilot is reshaping the developer workflow, GitHub’s new Agent Mode, and competition in the developer tooling market. They also explore how AI-driven coding impacts software pricing, the future of open source vs. proprietary APIs, and what Copilot’s success means for Microsoft. Plus, Thomas shares insights from his journey growing up in East Berlin and navigating rapidly changing worlds.
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com
Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @ThomasDohmke
Show Notes:
0:00 Introduction
0:37 GitHub Copilot’s capabilities
4:12 Will agents replace developers?
6:04 Copilot’s development cycle
8:34 Winning the developer market
10:40 Agent mode
13:25 Where GitHub is headed
16:45 Building for the new challenges of AI
21:50 Dev tools market formation
29:56 Copilot’s broader impact
32:17 How AI changes software pricing
39:16 Open source vs. proprietary APIs
48:01 Growing up in East Berlin
Can Europe win the age of AI? | Thomas Dohmke
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke discusses Europe's readiness to lead the next era of AI innovation, examining how the continent's tech ecosystems stack up against those in the US. In conversation with TEDAI Vienna co-curator Vlad Gozman, Dohmke explains the three key shifts that will help Europe thrive in the age of AI — and shows how GitHub's initiatives can empower anyone to build new ideas around the world.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says the AI industry needs competition to thrive
Today I’m talking with Thomas Dohmke, the CEO of GitHub. GitHub is the platform for managing code – but since 2018, it’s also been owned by Microsoft. We talk a lot about how independent GitHub really is inside of Microsoft — especially now that Microsoft is all-in on AI, and Gitbhub Copilot is one of the biggest AI product success stories that exists right now. But his perspective on AI is pretty refreshing: It’s clear there’s still a long way to go.
Links:
Original GitHub landing page | Wayback Machine
Introducing Entitlements | GitHub Blog
ashtom (Thomas Dohmke) | GitHub
The developers suing over GitHub Copilot got dealt a major blow in court | The Verge
GitHub Copilot can now help start a project with AI | The Verge
GitHub users can mess around with different AI models | The Verge
GitHub’s AI-powered Copilot will help you write code for $10 a month | The Verge
Google DeepMind co-founder joins Microsoft as CEO of its new AI division | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23986019
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Building Copilot, and the the Future of Software Development
GithHub invented collaborative coding and in the process changed how open source projects, startups and eventually enterprises write code. GitHub Copilot is the first blockbuster product built on top of OpenAI’s GPT models. It now accounts for more than 40 percent of GitHub revenue growth for an annual revenue run rate of $2 billion. Copilot itself is already a larger business than all of GitHub was when Microsoft acquired it in 2018.
We talk to CEO Thomas Dohmke about how a small team at GitHub built on top of GPT-3 and quickly created a product that developers love—and can’t live without. Thomas describes how the product has grown from simple autocomplete to a fully featured workspace for enterprise teams. He also believes that tools like Copilot will bring the power of coding to a billion developers by 2030.
Hosted by: Stephanie Zhan and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital
Mentioned in this episode:
Nat Friedman: Former Microsoft VP (and now investor) who came up with the idea that Microsoft should buy GitHub
Oege de Moor: Github developer (and now founder of XBOW) who came up with the idea of using GPT-3 for code and went on to create Copilot
Alex Graveley: principal engineer and Chief Architect for Copilot (now CEO of Minion.ai) who came up with the name Copilot (because his boss, Nat Firedman, is an amateur pilot)
Productivity Assessment of Neural Code Completion: Original GitHub research paper on the impact of Copilot on Developer productivity
Escaping a room in Minecraft with an AI-powered NPC: Recent Minecraft AI assistant demo from Microsoft
With AI, anyone can be a coder now: TED2024 talk by Thomas Dohmke
JFrog: The software supply chain platform that GitHub just partnered with
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:18 - Getting started with code
00:03:43 - Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub
00:11:40 - Evolving Copilot beyond autocomplete
00:14:18 - In hindsight, you can always move faster
00:15:56 - Building on top of OpenAI
00:20:21 - The latest metrics
00:22:11 - The surprise of Copilot’s impact
00:25:11 - Teaching kids to code in the age of Copilot
00:26:38 - The momentum mindset
00:29:46 - Agents vs Copilots
00:32:06 - The Roadmap
00:37:31 - Making maintaining software easier
00:38:48 - The creative new world
00:42:38 - The AI 10x software engineer
00:45:12 - Creativity and systems engineering in AI
00:48:55 - What about COBOL?
00:50:23 - Will GitHub build its own models?
00:57:19 - Rapid incubation at GitHub Next
00:59:21 - The future of AI?
01:03:18 - Advice for founders
01:05:08 - Lightning round
The One-Person, Billion-Dollar Startup? — With Thomas Dohmke
Thomas Dohmke is the CEO of Github. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the state of AI-assisted coding, and whether the rest of the economy can see benefits similar to software engineers using coding 'copilots.' We also discuss how AI assistance can help individual developers build whatever's on their mind, and whether we'll see $1 billion dollar startups built by just one person. Tune in the for the second half where we discuss the next set of AI models, how engineering jobs change when AI produces most of the code, and whether AI will eventually improve itself.
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With AI, anyone can be a coder now | Thomas Dohmke
What if you could code just by talking out loud? GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke shows how, thanks to AI, the barrier to entry to coding is rapidly disappearing — and creating software is becoming as simple (and joyful) as building LEGO. In a mind-blowing live demo, he introduces Copilot Workspace: an AI assistant that helps you create code when you speak to it, in any language.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
#123 CEO GitHub, Thomas Dohmke: Open-Source Values
In the middle of the Great Recession, Thomas Dohmke quit a stable job at a good company because “I wanted to build stuff again.” Specifically, he was inspired by the release of the first software development kit for iOS, and wanted to be part of the mobile revolution. Two companies later and halfway around the world, he is the CEO of software development powerhouse Github and on the precipice of another revolution — that of AI tools such as Github Copilot. Up to 40 percent of Copilot users’ code is already being autocompleted by AI, and Thomas predicts that number could get to 80 percent in the next five years. “We are heading into a world where developers are much more architecture and system designers,” he says.
In this episode, Thomas and Joubin discuss staying excited, A/B tests for life, triggering emails, “the toys you can’t have,” self-driving car sensors, the first iPhone SDK, app testing, US work visas, life-changing money, Xamarin, is Github a social network?, being ultra-transparent, ghost text, ChatGPT and Midjourney, generating passion, rehearsing forever, Mittelstand companies, and the zen of LEGO.
In this episode, we cover:
Titles at Microsoft and working with CEO Satya Nadella (00:58)
Being “85% happy” and the temptation to leave big companies for a startup (05:33)
How Thomas went from early user to CEO of GitHub (09:22)
Growing up in East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall (13:19)
Why Thomas quit his job at the height of the financial crisis: “I wanna build stuff again” (22:28)
Being acquired by Microsoft and coming to America (27:26)
The startup mindset and “open-source” values (34:09)
How Github’s “AI programmer,” Copilot, will change everything for developers (40:32)
When will generative AI have its “iPhone moment?” (45:44)
Exponential change and preparing your kids for the unknown future (50:57)
Communicating in English, and whether Thomas’ family would ever go back to Germany (57:21)
Tech culture in Europe vs. Silicon Valley and the pressure of “more” (01:01:19)
The “LEGO room” in Thomas’ house (01:07:18)
Links:
Connect with ThomasTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm