"Don’t Learn to Code" Is WRONG | GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke
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- 00:00I first of all I strongly believe that
- 00:02every kid uh every child should learn
- 00:04coding. We should actually teach them
- 00:06coding in school in the same way that we
- 00:07teach them physics and geography and uh
- 00:10you know literacy and math and whatn
- 00:11not. Those are all fundamental skills.
- 00:13Coding is one such skill because
- 00:15software is everywhere and in fact our
- 00:17day-to-day is dominated by software
- 00:18already. You can't really live your life
- 00:20travel um wake up in the morning without
- 00:23software anymore. And I think as as
- 00:24humans it is crucial to not only be in
- 00:27readonly mode but also be able to create
- 00:30uh things ourselves or at least
- 00:31understand how how creation is done on
- 00:33these devices. My name is Thomas and I'm
- 00:34a developer. I've been developing uh
- 00:37software since the early 1990s and today
- 00:39my role is mostly being the GitHub CEO
- 00:42leading uh the largest developer
- 00:43platform uh on this planet.
- 00:48I was born in uh 1978 in East Berlin
- 00:51when Germany was divided into two
- 00:53countries. So I was on the on the
- 00:55eastern side uh in Berlin in in a suburb
- 00:57called Matsan. I grew you know had a
- 00:59normal childhood um but was fascinated
- 01:02by technology remote control cars uh uh
- 01:04you know little computer games. Uh in
- 01:061989 the wall fell and and that opened
- 01:09up you know a whole new world to me as
- 01:10an 11year-old. um obviously from from a
- 01:13toy perspective um getting access to to
- 01:15Lego and and Mickey Mouse but also uh to
- 01:18uh to computers and so in the early 90s
- 01:20um I bought my first computer uh 64 and
- 01:23after um university um I went to
- 01:26technical university in Berlin I
- 01:28actually uh went into the automotive
- 01:30industry uh I started working at uh
- 01:32Mercedes back then it was called Dameler
- 01:34Chrysler working on driver assistance
- 01:36system uh for for the S-Class and I did
- 01:38that uh for a while and then switched to
- 01:40the supplier side to Bosch uh uh which
- 01:43is you know a large automotive supplier
- 01:45amongst amongst other things and and
- 01:46there uh worked you know on parking
- 01:49systems and it was in 2008 uh that two
- 01:52things happened. One is I finished my
- 01:53PhD thesis but also Steve Jobs showed
- 01:56the iPhone SDK. Everybody wanted to
- 01:58build apps um and and at the time only
- 02:01Apple could build native apps and I
- 02:03thought this is this is cool. I got to,
- 02:05you know, build apps myself and I got to
- 02:06get into that space. And so I quit my
- 02:08job at Bosch uh at the height of the
- 02:10financial crisis amongst all things uh
- 02:12in late 2008 and um reconnected with a
- 02:15friend um from from university and um we
- 02:18just became you know two freelance
- 02:19developers building apps uh for the
- 02:22German market. So mostly agency work or
- 02:24or subcontractor for for larger app
- 02:26projects. I think in in 2009 and 10 we
- 02:29built around 30 apps. That work on
- 02:31building apps um for for for mostly
- 02:33German customers um German enterprise
- 02:35customers media and and automotive and
- 02:36so on got us the idea of of building a
- 02:39platform for mobile app developers. And
- 02:42so we um together with three friends
- 02:44Stefan Andreas and and Michael we
- 02:46founded a company called Hockey App
- 02:48which was a platform for mobile app
- 02:49developers. you could distribute your
- 02:51beta builds and um collect uh error
- 02:54reports, crash reports and feedback and
- 02:56those kind of things. And so we built
- 02:58that startup you know the platform for
- 03:00our own you know freelance business
- 03:02because we had that painoint that we
- 03:04wanted to solve uh for ourselves. Um
- 03:06because it was before that you would
- 03:08send you know a build uh over email you
- 03:10know to to a project manager um in
- 03:13Berlin or so and then the project
- 03:15manager would take that build and send
- 03:16it to the customer and explain to them
- 03:18or you have to you know drag and drop
- 03:20that into iTunes and connect you know uh
- 03:22uh the dock cable and and all these kind
- 03:24of things. since we made that way easier
- 03:26which made our own life easier and I
- 03:28think those are some of the greatest
- 03:30startup ideas when you're using it
- 03:31yourself uh uh day in day out and then
- 03:34improving it um based on the feedback
- 03:36that you're getting from your own
- 03:37customers. So we basically started
- 03:38building out the the hockey app business
- 03:40while we had the the contracting
- 03:42business and they were companies um both
- 03:45about the same size and um when
- 03:47Microsoft came in in 2014, we thought
- 03:50they would only buy the hockey air
- 03:52platform and the product business and
- 03:53and leave the contracting business alone
- 03:55uh given there were existing customer uh
- 03:58contracts and and what have you. uh but
- 04:00in fact Microsoft bought both companies
- 04:02uh the the subsidiary the product
- 04:04company and the the mothership the the
- 04:06contracting company because the
- 04:08contracting company had a number of iOS
- 04:10and Android developers uh that were a
- 04:12hot commodity uh in 2014 and and hard to
- 04:15hire um certainly you know at at startup
- 04:18rates and so Microsoft actually took
- 04:20over both of those companies and uh a
- 04:22fun funny story is today of these 11
- 04:25employees seven including myself work
- 04:28for GitHub and so different paths Um uh
- 04:30they all got to Microsoft and then from
- 04:32Microsoft into GitHub. You know coming
- 04:34from a small company of of our size
- 04:37based in Germany in Stutka Germany,
- 04:39southwest Germany. Uh moving you know
- 04:42halfway around the world I moved with my
- 04:44wife and back then two very young kids
- 04:46uh to Seattle that alone was a big
- 04:49change. And looking back now um 10 years
- 04:51later and we moved we moved in in early
- 04:542015 it feels all like a blur like
- 04:57things moved so fast and sometimes I
- 04:59don't even realize how we did all that.
- 05:01Our startup was very small and
- 05:02bootstrapped um for the whole time. So
- 05:04we never took any outside investment uh
- 05:06until Microsoft acquired us and at that
- 05:09point in time I think it was about 11 or
- 05:11or 12 employees. a still very small
- 05:13team. all of all of engineers, you know,
- 05:16building building the product together
- 05:17and in some ways you know my role today
- 05:20as GitHub CEO um is very similar uh in
- 05:24that you know um my developer skills uh
- 05:27my understanding of code my um you know
- 05:30empathy for for how software developers
- 05:32work helped me both with my you know
- 05:35internal team of about a thousand uh
- 05:37engineers and with our customer base
- 05:39which are also all software developers
- 05:41or those that aspire to become software
- 05:43developer And so I think you know a lot
- 05:45of the you know my passion for software
- 05:47development is actually perfect you know
- 05:50for me being being the GitHub
- 05:55CEO I don't think I've seen anything
- 05:58more exciting and and and changing how
- 06:00uh we think about software development
- 06:02in my in my 30 plus year career as a
- 06:05software developer. You know, when I
- 06:07started coding in the early 1990s, uh
- 06:10there wasn't even the internet or I I
- 06:12certainly had no internet access and so
- 06:13I had to figure it all out all out all
- 06:15by myself with with books, with
- 06:17magazines, um going to computer club in
- 06:20the community center kind of hoping that
- 06:22somebody will be there. Um if we fast
- 06:24forward to where we are now is that it's
- 06:26so much easier to get into into software
- 06:28development. you can, you know, just
- 06:30write a prompt into Copilot or or Chat
- 06:32GPT or or similar tools and it uh will
- 06:35likely write you um um you know, a basic
- 06:38web page um or a small uh application, a
- 06:41game uh in Python. And so AI makes
- 06:45software development uh so much more
- 06:46accessible um for anyone who wants to
- 06:48learn coding. And on the other side of
- 06:50the spectrum, it makes developers so
- 06:51much more productive. Most uh developers
- 06:54that uh work on a project have way uh
- 06:57too much work to do. uh they have long
- 06:59backlogs um of their own ideas of
- 07:01customer feedback, you know, uh things
- 07:03that they're hearing from their managers
- 07:04or from the market or what they're
- 07:07seeing at competitors. And so almost any
- 07:10software project that has a certain, you
- 07:12know, age um has way too much work on
- 07:14the innovation side, but they also have
- 07:16what we call technical debt. Uh you
- 07:18know, legacy code, things that have, you
- 07:20know, been created over over months or
- 07:22years that need a cleanup, that need
- 07:24what we call refactoring. And so
- 07:26engineers constantly balance those two
- 07:28backlogs. So having something that
- 07:29brings the effort down and makes them
- 07:31you know 10% 20% maybe even 50% more
- 07:34productive is is completely changing uh
- 07:37how software developers work. the role
- 07:39of GitHub you know in this in the first
- 07:41uh let's say you know five years of the
- 07:43age of AI um given that we started
- 07:45working on GitHub copilot in uh June
- 07:472020 right after uh GP3 uh uh was was
- 07:51first shown to the world is that we want
- 07:53to be you know on the forefront um of uh
- 07:55AI code generation we want to provide um
- 07:58tools to developer to be more productive
- 08:01and more happy uh when when writing code
- 08:03because the reality is the dream I think
- 08:05for most developers that start their
- 08:08their journey um uh as a programmer is
- 08:11that they have an idea in their head and
- 08:13they're trying to find a way how they
- 08:15can can get the fastest from that idea
- 08:17to an app or or web page or service,
- 08:19right? Like the challenge is not that
- 08:21developers uh uh don't have enough
- 08:23ideas. The challenge is that you take
- 08:25that big idea and you have to break it
- 08:27down into small building blocks. And as
- 08:28you're working on the first block or the
- 08:30first module or the first class or uh
- 08:33micros service, whatever it is, you're
- 08:34you're realizing that this this idea
- 08:36that you have is so much more complex to
- 08:39implement than than you thought. And so
- 08:41from what became a weekend project, it
- 08:43becomes a month-long or sometimes
- 08:44year-long project. And many, you know,
- 08:46apps that, uh, I wrote as a teenager and
- 08:49I know, you know, many of my friends and
- 08:51and my employees wrote never get
- 08:53anywhere because you you ultimately
- 08:54realize it's much more complex than you
- 08:56thought and it's not worth spending the
- 08:57time on it. And in in the world that we
- 08:59live today, you can always, you know,
- 09:01download an app from the app store or
- 09:02find, you know, some online service that
- 09:04does the same thing. So, I think AI
- 09:06helps us, you know, to realize the dream
- 09:08of taking an idea and implementing it
- 09:10much faster. And you see um some of the
- 09:12early signs of that where very small
- 09:14startups sometimes you know five
- 09:16developers um and some of them actually
- 09:18only one developers uh uh believe they
- 09:20can become million uh if not billion
- 09:22dollar businesses by leveraging all the
- 09:25AI agents uh that are available to them
- 09:27and maybe building their own uh to to
- 09:29write code uh to write software much
- 09:31faster. Now the flip side of that is
- 09:33that you know uh I don't think we're
- 09:35anywhere close to a world where you can
- 09:36just write a single prompt and say build
- 09:38GitHub and then an AI agent builds all
- 09:41of the features of GitHub um or even
- 09:43just the very basic primitives like
- 09:45repository storage you know git storage
- 09:47and uh issue tracking um because the the
- 09:50decisions um that we as developers as
- 09:53engineers as product managers have to
- 09:55make to build a complex system like
- 09:57GitHub you know thousands if not tens of
- 09:59thousands decisions um there's the
- 10:01simple ones, right? Like which
- 10:02programming language, which which open
- 10:04source framework, which cloud to use or
- 10:06do we even use a cloud, which operating
- 10:08system and and so on. But there's the
- 10:10much more complex decisions of how you
- 10:12architect the system, you know, are you
- 10:14building a monolith and or you building
- 10:16microservices? And getting to a point
- 10:18where agents can make all these
- 10:19decisions and write an app that actually
- 10:22is a viable business, you know, finds
- 10:23product market fit, has a great user
- 10:25experience, and and ultimately generates
- 10:27both revenue and profit. uh because any
- 10:30business at some point has to get to the
- 10:31place where they're making profit and
- 10:32and return that profit to the to the
- 10:34founders or shareholders that I think
- 10:36we're we're quite far away and so we
- 10:37need uh engineers uh to do engineering
- 10:40stuff. They they need to exercise their
- 10:42craft and uh apply systems thinking and
- 10:45design and and and build really great
- 10:47applications.
- 10:51I think the unique thing about GitHub is
- 10:53its size and both the love uh that
- 10:56developers have for you know our brand
- 10:58um for our mascot um the octoat or we
- 11:01call it internally Mona um and um the
- 11:04reputation uh that GitHub has created
- 11:07for itself um since the very early days
- 11:09since the I remember the early launch of
- 11:11GitHub and and meeting um or seeing um
- 11:13Chris one of the founders speaking at
- 11:16RailsCon in in Las Vegas in in 2009 and
- 11:19then signing up for my own account and
- 11:20and started using it. I I was excited
- 11:23about using GitHub and now we are in in
- 11:262025 and there are still many people
- 11:27that uh love GitHub but you know what
- 11:30what comes with love is also that you're
- 11:32not holding back your criticism and that
- 11:34we have 150 million users and uh on the
- 11:37platform and so there's at least you
- 11:40know a million opinions of what are the
- 11:42things we should invest on and what's
- 11:44working well and and what's not working
- 11:45well and what's the one feature that is
- 11:47important you know to that set of users
- 11:50while it's not important uh to to me and
- 11:52and my product leadership team because
- 11:54we have you know our own uh strategy and
- 11:56decisions to make. So filtering out the
- 11:58signal from the noise and I don't mean
- 12:00noise in any negative way just so much
- 12:03feedback that we're getting. I remember
- 12:05when we when we did the acquisition in
- 12:072018 and I joined GitHub and afterwards
- 12:09um we sent an email to 10 GitHub users
- 12:11and say hey we we're looking into a new
- 12:12project we would love your feedback. I
- 12:14think we got nine responses of exciting
- 12:16users saying if you want to I want to
- 12:17provide feedback. If you do that in many
- 12:20other companies and startups you get one
- 12:21response and the one response is kind of
- 12:23like well I have like 10 minutes time to
- 12:25to give you some feedback. There's just
- 12:27so much um uh uh information that's
- 12:29that's coming back to us um on on social
- 12:32media and our platform in email and
- 12:34support tickets and so on. The second
- 12:35piece you know that comes to mind is
- 12:37that GitHub um for the longest time has
- 12:39been a company with a very strong remote
- 12:41culture like long before co uh the
- 12:43GitHub founders started hiring um
- 12:46developers uh sales folks support folks
- 12:48all over the world and today I think
- 12:50we're one of the largest remote only
- 12:53companies where all work you know from
- 12:54our homes or from you know hotel in in
- 12:58soul um or from from wherever we are and
- 13:00so a lot of um our culture is focused
- 13:03around GitHub as a platform form which
- 13:05obviously through open source encourages
- 13:07um uh asynchronous uh collaboration uh
- 13:11and then tools like Slack um um and and
- 13:14video video calls um uh that we use much
- 13:17more heavily internally than we're using
- 13:20email like like old school uh companies
- 13:22do. And so when I wake up in the morning
- 13:24especially here you know in Seoul uh
- 13:26which is like lots of time zones away uh
- 13:28from from the US uh where about 80% of
- 13:31our employee population is is that I
- 13:33wake up to 30 40 Slack messages plus you
- 13:36know uh uh hundreds of channels uh with
- 13:38with conversation and then figuring out
- 13:40you know what is actually important for
- 13:41me as CEO what what to react to what can
- 13:44I snooze uh for a while and what can I
- 13:46just ignore that that's the you know a
- 13:49big part of my job but it's also so
- 13:50exciting because you know, I can be here
- 13:53in South Korea um at at this event and
- 13:55and still still run the company. And a
- 13:58lot of, you know, what we do on a
- 13:59day-to-day basis doesn't actually matter
- 14:01whether I'm here in Seoul, or whether
- 14:02I'm in Berlin or whether in I'm in New
- 14:04York or anywhere else in the world. And
- 14:06and I think that's for for many hubbers,
- 14:08how we call our employees. A really
- 14:10strong part of our culture that we are
- 14:12remote company. Uh it's not related to
- 14:14the pandemic. It's a choice that we made
- 14:17of how we want to run the company. you
- 14:19know how we select GitHub as an employer
- 14:21and ultimately how we believe we can be
- 14:26successful. I first of all I strongly
- 14:28believe that every kid uh every child
- 14:31should learn coding and we should
- 14:33actually teach them coding in school in
- 14:34the same way that we teach them physics
- 14:36and geography and uh you know literacy
- 14:38and math and whatnot. Those are all
- 14:40fundamental skills. Coding is one such
- 14:42skill and it just has taken us too long
- 14:44to actually realize that because
- 14:46software is everywhere. Um hardware is
- 14:48also everywhere. We carry we carry both
- 14:50software and hardware with us uh through
- 14:51our day. And in fact our day-to-day is
- 14:53dominated by software already. You can't
- 14:55really uh live your life uh travel um
- 14:58wake up in the morning without software
- 14:59anymore. And I think as as humans it is
- 15:02crucial to not only be in read only mode
- 15:04but also be able to create uh things
- 15:07ourselves or at least understand how how
- 15:09creation is done on these devices. That
- 15:11doesn't mean that every you know 18
- 15:1219year-old when they leave high school
- 15:14become a software developer. In the same
- 15:16way that not every uh uh kid that learns
- 15:18physics or or chemistry in school
- 15:20becomes a physicist, right? Just because
- 15:21you learn those fundamental skills
- 15:23doesn't mean that you decide for
- 15:24yourself that that's the career path to
- 15:26take. So that's number one. You you got
- 15:27to you got to learn coding. I think
- 15:29number number two is you got to use AI
- 15:31to do that. And and you know whether
- 15:34it's here in Korea or in Germany uh most
- 15:36kids um uh and in fact you know most
- 15:39most people don't speak fluent English
- 15:41um which is the primary language of
- 15:42software development. And so it
- 15:44democratizes access to technology and
- 15:46that's true for many other uh things in
- 15:47the world. And so having uh an agent
- 15:50available uh that answers you any
- 15:52question but also lets you you know
- 15:54realize your dream building your dream
- 15:56uh is incredibly exciting. And then the
- 15:57third thing you know for anyone who is
- 15:59already a software developer or wants to
- 16:01you know develop their craft is you got
- 16:03to keep you got to keep rehearsing. You
- 16:04got to keep training. Yeah. You got to
- 16:06keep learning. There's you're never done
- 16:08with learning. If I look back 30 years
- 16:10of what development looked like back
- 16:11then and what it looks like now, um I
- 16:13would have been, you know, um very
- 16:15behind if I hadn't constantly read blog
- 16:17posts, um uh literature and and tried
- 16:20out things myself. So I think those are
- 16:22uh as as crucial as they were in the '
- 16:2490s, they are still crucial in 2025. You
- 16:26just have so much more access to
- 16:27information uh to become, you know, top
- 16:30of the
- 16:32field. The obvious answer is that I most
- 16:35enjoy using GitHub Copi, right? like
- 16:37that's our product. Uh it's our baby. Uh
- 16:40we're working on this day in day out. I
- 16:42often, you know, uh see features long
- 16:44before the world sees that. And and the
- 16:46flip side is also true that I often
- 16:48don't actually know what's shipped
- 16:50versus what is, you know, in in preview
- 16:51or in in internal ships. And so I'm
- 16:54daily excited about what we're building
- 16:56there and I'm using a lot of that myself
- 16:57as I am at heart a developer. And
- 17:00sometimes it's very simple, you know,
- 17:01asking it to to write me a quick script
- 17:04that that downloads, you know, ids of
- 17:05all our repositories um from our API.
- 17:08And in the past, I would have gone, you
- 17:10know, to our API documentation and
- 17:11figure that out all myself and probably
- 17:13would have taken me like half an hour to
- 17:15to get to, you know, a shell script that
- 17:18does that. Today, I just ask Copil and
- 17:20it writes me the script and it works
- 17:22within within minutes. Um, and I think
- 17:24actually that's the one of the true
- 17:25superpowers of AI. Whether that's
- 17:27learning to code or exploring the world,
- 17:29you have um an assistant available to
- 17:32you that has infinite patience. You
- 17:33know, it doesn't judge you. Um, it will,
- 17:35you know, chat GPT or co-pilot never
- 17:37tells you what what a stupid question
- 17:39is. It always gives you an answer and it
- 17:40even accepts when you tell it it's wrong
- 17:42or it needs to, you know, explore the
- 17:44topic a little bit further. You know,
- 17:46you have seen uh the prompt examples
- 17:48where by telling it to outline its
- 17:50thought process, it actually gets to a
- 17:52better answer. I love using it for my
- 17:54blog posts and PowerPoint presentation
- 17:56to just uh generate some images and and
- 17:59play with that. Um I'm I'm really bad at
- 18:02using Photoshop and and and drawing
- 18:04myself, but I'm I'm really creative and
- 18:06I can write prompts and and figure out
- 18:08how to rewrite the prompt to make the
- 18:10image look more than uh more more
- 18:12closely to what I had in my head.
- 18:14There's, you know, tools that we're
- 18:15using like teams copilot to summarize
- 18:17meetings, especially when I I'm on
- 18:18business trips like that. Um, where I
- 18:20miss a lot of the meetings that happen
- 18:22uh in on the west coast and west coast
- 18:24time zone. Just getting a summary,
- 18:26figuring out other action items for me.
- 18:28Uh, same for summarizing emails. Um, uh,
- 18:30you know, using something like reclaim
- 18:32AI to to manage my calendar. Those
- 18:34things are making me more productive.
- 18:35And I think the really exciting thing is
- 18:37that there's always a new tool to try
- 18:39out and see is that how far along that
- 18:42journey is AI and how much more do we
- 18:44still have to do as an industry to
- 18:46actually get to that to that dream of of
- 18:48having an orchestra of agent uh that
- 18:50that we're controlling during our
- 18:51personal and in our professional lives.