GitHub’s Massive Scaleup Journey Continues

Despite recent growing pains, GitHub remains a leader in the software category thanks to its dedication to its base clientele: coders.

GitHub Tackles Growing Pains

Why GitHub Matters to Developers

GitHub is built on Git, a version control system that tracks every change made to a project’s code. GitHub put that system online and added social tools around it: developers can store their code, copy other people’s projects, suggest changes through “pull requests” and discuss them with the people who maintain the code.

That combination turned GitHub into the default home for open source software and, over time, a place where companies keep their private code too. It’s also become a kind of public résumé for programmers, since their work and contributions are visible to anyone who looks.

How did GitHub manage to find the balance between rapid growth and long-term planning? We talked to project manager Daniel Hwang about overcoming the challenges that can come with large-scale success.

Taking On Explosive Scaleup With GitHub

A Change at the Top

The growing pains continued through 2017. In August that year, Forbes reported that co-founder and CEO Chris Wanstrath would step down after finding his own replacement. Wanstrath had run the company in its early years, served as president, and then returned to the CEO role in 2014.

Leadership changes like this are common as startups grow up. The skills that get a company from a side project to millions of users aren’t always the same ones needed to run a large business that sells to big enterprises.

And in this Facebook gallery, we outline some landmark moments from Github’s history:

The Microsoft Acquisition

The search for a new CEO ended in an acquisition instead. On June 4, 2018, Microsoft announced it would acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock. At the time, more than 28 million developers used the platform.

Microsoft said GitHub would keep its developer-first approach and operate independently. Nat Friedman, a Microsoft corporate vice president and the founder of Xamarin, became GitHub’s CEO, and Wanstrath became a Microsoft technical fellow. “I’m extremely proud of what GitHub and our community have accomplished over the past decade, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead,” Wanstrath said in the announcement.

The deal worried some developers, who weren’t sure how Microsoft would treat a platform at the heart of open source. But GitHub kept growing after the deal closed in October 2018.

From 28 Million to 100 Million Developers

In January 2023, GitHub announced that more than 100 million developers were using the platform, more than three times the number at the time of the Microsoft announcement.

A big part of GitHub’s story since then has been AI. In June 2021, it launched a technical preview of GitHub Copilot, an “AI pair programmer” that suggests code as developers type. Copilot became one of the first widely adopted AI coding tools and a central part of GitHub’s product line.

Leadership changed again too. Thomas Dohmke, GitHub’s product chief, succeeded Friedman as CEO, and in August 2025 Dohmke announced that he would step down at the end of the year.

Lessons From GitHub’s Scaleup

GitHub’s path shows a few things that apply to any fast-growing startup. Staying close to your core users matters: GitHub’s loyalty from coders is what made it valuable enough for Microsoft to pay billions. Growth also brings new problems, from leadership to selling to enterprises, and those usually need different answers than the ones that worked early on.

Finally, an acquisition doesn’t have to be the end of a product. GitHub’s user base grew several times over after the deal, which suggests that keeping the product focused on its users can matter more than who owns it.