Nat Friedman is Leaving Microsoft’s GitHub

In a bizarre bit of timing—Visual Studio 2022 and .NET 6 are launching next week—Microsoft’s GitHub CEO Nat Friedman is leaving the company.

“I am incredibly proud of what we have all achieved together,” Mr. Friedman writes in his goodbye post. “GitHub has gone from a place to store and share code to a complete developer platform … Today, more than 73 million developers are building the future of software on GitHub, we count 84 percent of the Fortune 100 as our customers, and every year since the acquisition our business has grown more than the last.”

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As for the why of his exit, Friedman says that “it’s time for [him] to go back to [his] startup roots” and “enable builders to create the future,” a vague explanation that Mary Jo Foley takes to mean that he’s heading into venture capital. Why Friedman couldn’t wait until Microsoft’s November developer launches were complete is unclear, but it casts a weird shadow of uncertainty over next week’s events.

Friedman’s departure is effective November 15. At that time, GitHub’s current chief product officer, will become its new CEO.

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Conversation 7 comments

  • mattbg

    Premium Member
    04 November, 2021 - 11:52 am

    <p>This is more reflective of me than anything else… but I am surprised to hear that GitHub actually had a CEO :)</p>

  • spacein_vader

    Premium Member
    04 November, 2021 - 12:09 pm

    <p>Was he the CEO when MS bought it? If so it might just be that the amount of time he was obliged by his contract to stay post-sale has elapsed and he wants out. Happens a lot. </p>

    • madthinus

      Premium Member
      04 November, 2021 - 2:46 pm

      <p>No, he was appointed by Microsoft when they bought it.</p>

  • spiderman2

    04 November, 2021 - 5:16 pm

    <p>bizarre timing? GitHub has nothing to do with .Net and VS</p>

  • innitrichie

    04 November, 2021 - 7:58 pm

    <p>This is totally freaking me out.</p><p>I love GitHub. It’s basically where I live my entire life. I hope nothing bad happens to it.</p>

  • saint4eva

    07 November, 2021 - 6:24 am

    <p>So, what does GitHub as a company got to do with .NET 6 and Visual Studio 2022? The headline must generate some clicks by fire by force. Lol</p>

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