So GitHub's CEO is stepping down... and honestly, it's the end of an era

So Thomas Dohmke is stepping down as GitHub’s CEO to “become a founder again.”

On its own, that’s not a big deal. People do that all the time. But when you put it next to GitHub being folded into Microsoft’s new CoreAI division, it starts to feel like more than just a career move. It feels like a shift.

GitHub’s independence after the Microsoft acquisition always felt a little… fragile. It mostly worked, and credit where it’s due, it wasn’t the disaster a lot of people predicted. But this makes things clearer. GitHub isn’t really operating on its own anymore. It’s part of Microsoft’s AI machine now.

And honestly, I get why. Between Copilot, VS Code, Azure, and all this talk about an “agents-first” future, GitHub can’t just be a place to store code. It’s becoming part of how code actually gets written.

What makes me uneasy isn’t some cartoon villain scenario. It’s the quiet kind of lock-in:
Copilot works best in VS Code.
Github Actions naturally point you to Azure.
Codespaces lives entirely inside Microsoft’s cloud.

None of that is shocking. It’s just very clear now. The fact that there’s no rush to replace the CEO is probably the biggest signal. GitHub doesn’t really need an independent voice at the top anymore. It needs to move in sync.

Are developers going to leave GitHub because of this? No. I’m not. You probably aren’t either. The network effects are just too strong, and Microsoft knows it.

We’ll likely get better tools. Smarter AI. Faster workflows. That part is exciting. But true independence? That feels like a closed chapter.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Or maybe this is just what “open source” looks like in an AI-first world.

Either way, it feels like the end of an era.