GitHub just got less independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation

Microsoft is moving GitHub even more closely into its CoreAI team, following the resignation of GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke today. After nearly four years as CEO, Dohmke is leaving GitHub to “become a startup founder again,” and pursue opportunities outside of Microsoft and GitHub.

GitHub has operated as a separate company ever since Microsoft acquired it in 2018 for $7.5 billion, but Dohmke’s departure is part of a big shakeup to the way GitHub operates. Microsoft isn’t replacing Dohmke’s CEO position, and the rest of GitHub’s leadership team will now report more directly to Microsoft’s CoreAI team.

“GitHub and its leadership team will continue its mission as part of Microsoft’s CoreAI organization, with more details shared soon,” says Dohmke in a memo to GitHub employees today. “I’ll be staying through the end of 2025 to help guide the transition and am leaving with a deep sense of pride in everything we’ve built as a remote-first organization spread around the world.”

Microsoft’s CoreAI team is a new engineering group led by former Meta executive Jay Parikh. It includes Microsoft’s platform and tools division and Dev Div teams, with a focus on building an AI platform and tools for both Microsoft and its customers.

Today’s change means GitHub no longer has a single leader, or CEO, and responsibility for GitHub will align more closely to the CoreAI leadership team. GitHub’s reporting structure originally changed in 2021 when former CEO Nat Friedman stepped down, and Dohmke reported up to Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft’s developer division. Liuson then started reporting to Parikh earlier this year with the formation of the CoreAI team.

Jay Parikh, head of CoreAI, described his vision of an AI agent factory in an interview with Notepad earlier this year, and how he is convincing the developer division of Microsoft to adopt AI. “Just like how Bill [Gates] had this idea of Microsoft being a bunch of software developers building a bunch of software, I want our platform, for any enterprise or any organization, to be able to be the thing they turn into their own agent factory,” said Parikh.

Dohmke only just appeared on Decoder last week, discussing Copilot, vibe coding, and what’s next for AI. Dohmke was thinking a lot about the competition and GitHub’s role in the future of software development, and now he’s about to leave to potentially create some more competition for Microsoft’s AI efforts.

Correction, August 11th: GitHub was already part of CoreAI, but its leadership will no longer be under a single CEO.