[AIbase Report] The CEO of GitHub, Microsoft's code hosting platform, Thomas Dohmke, is about to leave. He sent a memo to employees on Monday and published it in a blog post, announcing that he will return to being a "founder," but will remain until the end of the year to assist with the transition. Microsoft has not yet announced a successor.
Dohmke joined Microsoft in 2015 through the acquisition of his startup HockeyApp. In 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion, and Dohmke was transferred to the business in 2021 as a product leader, and later took over as CEO from Nat Friedman a few months later.
Dohmke's departure comes at a critical time for GitHub as it faces fierce competition in AI coding tools. In 2021, under Friedman's leadership, GitHub partnered with Microsoft and OpenAI to launch the popular Copilot tool, which recommends code for developers to improve efficiency. Currently, GitHub has more than 150 million registered developers, a significant increase from 73 million in October 2021. According to Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, 20 million people are using Copilot, and the number of Copilot Enterprise customers has increased by 75% month-over-month.
However, with the rise of the "vibe coding" trend, many startups have emerged quickly, challenging GitHub. These tools use AI models to rapidly generate application and website code, including Cursor developed by Anysphere, Replit, and Windsurf. According to the Stack Overflow developer survey conducted between May and June this year, emerging tools like Cursor, Claude Code from Anthropic, and Windsurf have started to capture market share, and none of these competitors were mentioned in last year's survey, indicating that the market landscape is changing rapidly.
