GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Copilot and the Future of Software Development

In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Lukas Biewald sits down with Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, to talk about the future of software engineering in the age of AI. They discuss how GitHub Copilot was built, why agents are reshaping developer workflows, and what it takes to make tools that are not only powerful but also fun. Thomas shares his experience leading GitHub through its $7.5B acquisition by Microsoft, the unexpected ways it accelerated innovation, and why developer happiness is crucial to productivity. They explore what still makes human engineers irreplaceable and how the next generation of developers might grow up coding alongside AI. Timestamps: 00:00 Why Lukas wanted to interview GitHub's CEO 01:30 Advice for founders post-acquisition 06:10 What made the GitHub/Microsoft acquisition so successful 10:30 Developer-first principles and integration strategy 15:40 How GitHub Actions and joint sales with Microsoft accelerated growth 19:10 Copilot’s origin story and early reception 26:40 Launching Copilot before the AI hype wave 31:55 The rise of CopilotX, chat, agents, and enterprise adoption 38:45 Why agentic coding still lags and what needs to improve 44:00 The value of system design and human oversight 48:50 How AI tools are changing developer workflows and culture 55:30 Teaching kids to code with AI and early software memories 01:01:20 Code literacy as a fundamental skill 01:04:55 Small teams, big products: what the future of dev might look like 🎙 Get our podcasts on these platforms: Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Follow Weights & Biases:   / weights_biases     / wandb