GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to resign on November 15

GitHub CEO Nat Friedman will step down on November 15, after five years at parent company Microsoft. Thomas Dohmke, who was recently promoted to chief product officer, will take over Friedman’s position as CEO.

Friedman announced his departure in a blog post on GitHub. “With everything we’ve accomplished in mind, and more than five amazing years at Microsoft behind me, I’ve decided it’s time for me to go back to my start-up roots,” he writes. Friedman says he wants to invest in and support ‘the builders who create the world of tomorrow’. The CEO will also remain involved with GitHub as ‘chairman emeritus’.

Thomas Dohmke replaces Friedman on November 15. Dohmke joined GitHub in 2018 and previously worked as a co-founder of developer app HockeyApp. He will report to Julia Liuson, who will be promoted to head of Microsoft’s developer division, according to an internal email accessed by The Verge. GitHub will continue to operate as an independent company from Microsoft.

GitHub is used by developers, among others, to host the source codes of open source software. It is based on the Git system, which was developed by Linux maker Linus Torvalds. GitHub was founded in San Francisco in 2008 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2018. The tech giant paid $7.5 billion for this.