GithHub invented collaborative coding and in the process changed how open source projects, startups and eventually enterprises write code. GitHub Copilot is the first blockbuster product built on top of OpenAI’s GPT models. It now accounts for more than 40 percent of GitHub revenue growth for an annual revenue run rate of $2 billion. Copilot itself is already a larger business than all of GitHub was when Microsoft acquired it in 2018.
We talk to CEO Thomas Dohmke about how a small team at GitHub built on top of GPT-3 and quickly created a product that developers love—and can’t live without. Thomas describes how the product has grown from simple autocomplete to a fully featured workspace for enterprise teams. He also believes that tools like Copilot will bring the power of coding to a billion developers by 2030.
Hosted by: Stephanie Zhan and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital
Mentioned in this episode:
Nat Friedman: Former Microsoft VP (and now investor) who came up with the idea that Microsoft should buy GitHub
Oege de Moor: Github developer (and now founder of XBOW) who came up with the idea of using GPT-3 for code and went on to create Copilot
Alex Graveley: principal engineer and Chief Architect for Copilot (now CEO of Minion.ai) who came up with the name Copilot (because his boss, Nat Firedman, is an amateur pilot)
Productivity Assessment of Neural Code Completion: Original GitHub research paper on the impact of Copilot on Developer productivity
Escaping a room in Minecraft with an AI-powered NPC: Recent Minecraft AI assistant demo from Microsoft
With AI, anyone can be a coder now: TED2024 talk by Thomas Dohmke
JFrog: The software supply chain platform that GitHub just partnered with
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:18 - Getting started with code
00:03:43 - Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub
00:11:40 - Evolving Copilot beyond autocomplete
00:14:18 - In hindsight, you can always move faster
00:15:56 - Building on top of OpenAI
00:20:21 - The latest metrics
00:22:11 - The surprise of Copilot’s impact
00:25:11 - Teaching kids to code in the age of Copilot
00:26:38 - The momentum mindset
00:29:46 - Agents vs Copilots
00:32:06 - The Roadmap
00:37:31 - Making maintaining software easier
00:38:48 - The creative new world
00:42:38 - The AI 10x software engineer
00:45:12 - Creativity and systems engineering in AI
00:48:55 - What about COBOL?
00:50:23 - Will GitHub build its own models?
00:57:19 - Rapid incubation at GitHub Next
00:59:21 - The future of AI?
01:03:18 - Advice for founders
01:05:08 - Lightning round
GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke on Building Copilot, and the the Future of Software Development | Training Data podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
