The old CEO of GitHub and the new CEO of GitHub lay out the master plan after Microsoft buys it for $7.5 billion
- We spoke to outgoing GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath and incoming GitHub CEO Nat Friedman about what will happen to the startup after Microsoft buys it for $7.5 billion.
- "The plan is to help GitHub be great at being GitHub," says Friedman. It will operate independently, and the whole team is expected to make the transition.
- Some developers are upset at the deal, concerned that Microsoft will lock GitHub down to not work with any competitors' technologies.
- Not so, says Wanstrath: "Skepticism is totally understandable, but we're on the right path."
On Monday, Microsoft announced its intent to buy GitHub, the red-hot startup at the center of the open source software world, for $7.5 billion.
As part of the deal, Microsoft VP Nat Friedman will take over as CEO of GitHub. Chris Wanstrath, a GitHub cofounder and the current CEO, will take the new title of Microsoft Technical Fellow, and remain an advisor to the company. Microsoft expects that the whole of the GitHub team will stick around for the transition, as well.
Business Insider spoke to Friedman and Wanstrath following news of the acquisition, where the two laid out the master plan for GitHub after the deal closes later this year. The short version: GitHub will maintain its independence as a wholly-owned subsidiary, but have access to Microsoft's prowess in both engineering and sales.
"The plan is to help GitHub be great at being GitHub," says Friedman.
Word of the deal, which Business Insider first reported on Friday, has already caused some consternation in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Programmers took to Twitter to joke that Microsoft would soon add Clippy, or force people to log in with their Microsoft Office account (some of the jokes were "pretty funny," allows Friedman). Others struck a more serious tone, as they worried that the deal might mean GitHub becomes closed off to anything but Microsoft technologies.
Friedman says plainly that this isn't in the cards: GitHub has won over 24 million developers because of its openness to all tools and technology, and it wouldn't do to hamstring it now. Friedman himself has some context here: He came to Microsoft in 2016, when his own startup Xamarin was purchased and integrated into the cloud business.
"It's incumbent on us to use the philosophy that's made GitHub successful," says Friedman.
For his part, Wanstrath sees where the doubters are coming from, but notes that successful recent Microsoft acquisitions like the $26.2 billion LinkedIn buy and the $2.5 billion purchase of Minecraft publisher Mojang should give GitHub users some comfort.
"Skepticism is totally understandable, but we're on the right path," says Wanstrath.
Indeed, Wanstrath sees those acquisitions in particular as reasons why GitHub has a bright future at Microsoft.
Way back in 2015, Wanstrath sketched out his vision of GitHub's future to Business Insider, and a big part of it involved lowering the barriers to entering the profession of coding. With Minecraft, Microsoft is encouraging kids to try their hands at coding. And at LinkedIn, Microsoft is investing in helping workers develop the tech skills they need to compete in the modern economy. That dovetails with where he's long wanted GitHub to go.
"That's what we're excited about at this stage," says Wanstrath.