GitHub CEO: Why Now Is the BEST Time to Be a Developer | Thomas Dohmke

What would you say to coders who are

learning how to code right now? This is

Thomas, CEO of GitHub, the world's

largest platform for developers with

over 100 million users. Under his

leadership, GitHub co-pilot became the

most widely adopted AI coding tool in

history. We see big companies put a stop

on hiring in 2 years. Do you think I

wouldn't need a developer? The idea that

AI without any coding skills let you

just build a billion dollar business is

mistaken because if if that would be the

case, everyone would do it. He led

GitHub's $7.5 billion integration with

Microsoft. Now he's shaping the future

of coding itself. So you're not scared.

The dream of software development was

always that I can take the idea that I

have in my head on a Sunday morning and

by the evening I have the app in the up

and running on my phone.

Thanks to HubSpot for sponsoring this

video. Hey guys, welcome to Silicon

Valley Girl. We're here at Viva Techch

in Paris and I have Thomas the CEO of

GitHub. I am so excited to talk to you

about what's going on in coding. First

of all, let's define vibe coding. For

everyone who's heard this term and

they're like what's what's going on?

What's happening? Oo, that's a tough

question to start with. I think the you

know the loosest interpretation for my

side is that vibe coding means you open

your IDE you know like like copilot or

cursive insert any of these and you go

into the agent mode and you give it a

task to do and then you're just

following along of what the agent

proposes to you and you run the commands

and you're mostly focused on interacting

with the agent and not so much of what

the code actually is doing like you're

not reviewing the code all the time.

Yeah. And you don't have to learn how to

code cuz I tried GitHub copilot. I was

just chatting with it. I'm like create

this website do this and then it just

tells me where to put the code so it

starts working. So how complicated can

the website get with bip coding? Can I

build something that has a database or

is it just like a landing page or a very

simple app? My rule of thumb would be

you can get as far as you're having the

patience to keep prompting because you

know as you said if you don't understand

what the agent is actually writing what

the code looks like well then your only

way of modifying you know the

functionality is by figuring out how to

problem it almost becomes a a quiz or

like a game right like where you're

trying to okay so hm let me try a

different approach I like to compare

this to image models right you start

with a simple prompt you render an image

of Paris And then almost certainly you

get something which isn't exactly what

you expected and then you start you know

rewriting it and for some time there

were like tricks to do that in in stable

diffusion and midjourney h by doing

things like trending on art station h

and then you got closer to what you

wanted but at some point you either run

into like a direction where you can't

keep going anymore or you just take it

and you know move it into Photoshop or

in in in in the world of copilot into VS

code and and now you have to start

learning how to code. So I think you can

build a web page, you can build

authentication, you can build, you know,

settings pages and things like that, but

you're ultimately always going to reach

a point where the complexity uh is is so

um deep, I guess, you know, that you

have to then understand what the code is

actually doing or you're building

something and it doesn't scale, you

know, and it's super slow and now

figuring out a prompt on how to make it

fast and know let's say it's a Shopify

shop and make it scale for Black Friday

that that is when you have to be a

professional developer at least you know

for now. So um right now we're using

code to do basic things in two years. Do

you think I wouldn't need a developer to

build a billion dollar company with just

by coding or we're still too far away

from it? I think you have to be a

developer to be in the tech business

because what you can do with with just

the help of AI not coding everybody else

can do as well. And as such your

business isn't really differentiated

anymore from other businesses, right?

Like if I can just prompt it in five

minutes and build it myself, what do I

need a SAS service that I pay a

subscription for, right? And so I think

the startups will build in 10x 100x more

complex things that they're doing today

with the help of AI and as such

differentiating from those that are just

vibing it. Now, you know, there's lots

of businesses where you don't have to

code at all, you know, like like your

your YouTube channel and there's many

other YouTube channels where you can

build out a brand and then hire a team

to do a lot of these things. But I I

think the the idea that AI without any

coding skills let you just build a

billion dollar business is mistaken

because if if that would be the case,

everyone would do it and then everybody

has a billion dollar company which is

which doesn't work, right? Like who's

paying the who's paying the money?

Exactly. I know a lot of you guys who

are watching this are dreaming of

becoming tech founders. And with new AI,

it's so much easier to build an app or

to put your idea into action within 24

hours. And it's becoming crystal clear

that AI is not just a tool. It can

actually become your co-founder, but the

key is how you prompt it. How do you

make it think like you? Because the

better you are at talking to it, the

more powerful it becomes. If you want to

get really good at using chat GBT or any

AI tool, I highly recommend you check

out this ebook that is called Advanced

Chat GBT Pro Engineering from Basic to

Expert in 7 Days. I put the link in the

description to download it for free.

It's basically a step-by-step guide to

teach AI think like you. So, instead of

just randomly prompting, you build

systems that save you time. I especially

love two sections. The Roses framework.

It gives you a crystal clear formula for

structuring any prompt with the right

role objective scenario expected

output and steps and modular

architecture. It teaches you how to

create prompt components you can mix and

match like Legos and save hours every

week. This book is made by HubSpot

Media, which is the sponsor of today's

video. And honestly, I wish I had

something like that when I just started

using AI and started prompting by

myself. Now, let's get back to our

conversation. Do you think we're going

to have less or more developers in 5

years? I think we have going to have way

more developers because it's so much

easier to learn it. You know, we talked

about our kids earlier. Kids can just

get into this by using uh co-pilot and

then say, "Hey, how do I build a game?"

Exactly. Then they see games, you know,

when they when they go to school, when

they talk to their friends, when they,

you know, go to a ski lodge and they

have a Nintendo corner. And so

naturally, kids when they uh, you know,

explore these these technologies, they

want to learn it themselves. And so

giving them, you know, an agent, a chat

tool on the side to say, "Hey, you know,

this is how you can learn coding. This

is kind of how you can fix your bugs.

This is kind of how you can unblock

yourself, right?" Like the most

frustrating thing when you're learning

something is you're stuck somewhere and

then you have nobody at home or in your

in your family or friends that can help

you with that because they're all

nontechnical. So like that's when we

when we're saying AI is democratizing

access. That's what we mean. Everyone

who wants to learn it can learn it. Now

that doesn't mean you know everybody who

wants to learn coding then becomes a

professional software developer right I

think there's a much bigger going to be

much bigger range between consumer

developers that build their own micro

apps personalized things you know the

trip to Paris app to figure out this is

the places we want to see this is all

the photos we took and it's only

valuable to you and your family or you

and your friends all the way to the

professional developers that builds all

these AI systems all the agents that we

see here on the show floor today that I

think is still going to be profession

and there's going to

those the companies that are the

smartest are going to hire more

developers because if you 10x a single

developer then 10 developers can do 100x

100x yeah it feels like we're moving in

with the developing we're moving into

like what websites used to be 10 years

ago when suddenly there are tools like

Sarpace and everyone starts having a

website so they need designers who are

not too technical who have taste so it's

something like this right when everyone

has an ability to code an app they will

still need someone to like take care of

it correct and you wouldn't start a

business today where you're saying I'm

building app web pages for or for small

businesses right like every VC would

tell you that's that's not

differentiated there there is no mode

you know that's that's not the next

billion dollar business that's why I'm

thinking you know AI will generate so

much bigger ideas that the same size of

team can implement or as you grow your

team you can do do even more than those

that are just using AI for cost savings

it's interesting when we talk about this

when I tell this idea to my followers

like hey every team can become a lot

bigger they can develop They're like,

"But who's going to buy? We're still

going to have the same amount of

people." What do you think about that? I

think it's temporary a temporary effect

right now that this is the natural

conclusion for the short term. We keep

things stable and we're trying to figure

out how the market develops. But very

quickly, I think we're going to see

people that say, "Well, wait a second.

If I have one more productive developer,

why wouldn't I hire another one and

another one?" And in fact, you know, AI

has already added more work to the

backlogs, right? Like I haven't seen

companies saying well we're draining all

our backlog and we have almost nothing

left and soon enough AI is so powerful

that all the ideas are implemented and

we're just sitting around doing nothing.

I think the reality is AI you know all

these models all these agents you know

the path to AGI ultimately means that we

have more work to do. I said this

morning that I believe 90% of all code

is going to be written by agents. Yeah.

And that sounds like we take away 90% of

the work from developers and they're

only left with 10%. But if the total

amount of code is growing by 10x, right

now the agent has 9x and the developer

still has their 1x that they had before.

And so you can keep going with that

logic and and you see that you know

ultimately those companies are

successful that use AI to accelerate not

to cut costs. But at the same time, we

see big companies uh put a stop put a

stop on hiring and they say like, "Hey,

you need to their employees, you need to

figure out how to do this with AI first

before we hire someone." What do you

think about that? I think it's a

reflection of, you know, a fast changing

market and a lot of uncertainty uh both,

you know, in the political uh uh

environment and in the tech environment

of where things are going and the

natural tendency to do is to go slower a

little bit. Um, and you may might

decide, you know, some people are no

longer the right folks in my company for

that kind of environment where things

are moving incredibly fast, where you're

almost forced to use AI to keep up with

the competition. But like the

realization I think that many companies

had in the last few months is that if we

have employees that say we don't want to

use AI, that ultimately means up we as a

company are no longer set up for success

because our competitors are all using AI

or they're mandating AI. And I think

this is the transition phase we're going

through. But I believe very quickly uh

we're going to see uh an acceleration

and you already see you know things like

Mark Zuckerberg uh uh getting the scale

scale AI team.

I I think that shows where Mark's head

is and where he believes the future is

going to be. He's going he's willing to

invest into it. Yeah. Yeah. What would

you say to coders who are learning how

to code right now? What should they

focus on to be able to get a job? Learn

where they are. I think the the biggest

upside that young people have is that

they are adopting new technology much

faster than those that are in in our

day-to-day, right? Like when you're in a

day-to-day job, you have so much work

and you have all your meetings and all

the emails and all the things you have

to do that you barely have any time to

learn. While young people that are still

in school or in college have a lot of

time to learn. And often, you know,

young folks are much more open-minded to

explore these and and adopt these new

things. It's, you know, when you go to

your parents and you're like, oh, you're

old because you're listening to all this

music from the past or you're still

watching linear TV and and and those

kind of things. And I think though the

the next generation of developers will

grow up with AI, they will in the same

way that you know the Gen Z has grown up

with uh with smartphones. Um while in my

generation, I didn't have a smartphone

until I was like 20. Well, I didn't have

a cell phone until I was like early 20s

and then I didn't have a smartphone

until I was already my 30s, right? And

so I think that's we're going to see a

new generation of software developers

that for them using an a set of agents

is is just going to be natural just and

they're going to have that when they're

writing an email. They're going to have

that when they're planning a trip. Uh

they're going to have that on the trip

and of course in their work environment

uh across you know the coding skills but

everything else as well in in

professional life. Do you think everyone

should try VIP coding today or you think

it's too early for everyone? I think

it's about the right time. You know,

there's enough tools um and enough AI uh

systems like CH GPT and claude that have

some form of VIP coding built in. Um

OpenAI launch. You have to copy the

code, right? And insert uh not with

OpenAI has codeex um which which you

know lets you do some of those things uh

uh within within the OpenAI environment

or chat GBT environment. Uh uh but

you're right, there's some tools where

you still have to know where to put it

and and what a what a GitHub repository

even is or what GitHub is for that

matter. And then there's technologies

like versels with zero uh lovable bold

where you can actually get just get

started without any technical

background. What you also see if you if

you follow Reddit threads of people, you

know, reporting on their experience is

that you do will get stuck, right?

That's the nature of this is either

you're not asking deep enough or not

giving it or you just don't know what to

ask, not enough problems. Uh or then

you're probably getting it done, but it

looks crappy or it's very simple or

you're going really to the to the edge

of the technology and then you're going

to get stuck if you don't know how to

how to go into the source code and make

modifications. But yeah, I think Manos

is the other one. Manos um who is this

Chinese startup that brought this agent

to market where you can do VIP coding in

the sense of a consumer specifies what

they want to build and then it builds

you this uh web page or web app right in

the chat tool. So you're not you're not

never even launching anything or

deploying it or any any of the developer

activities. you're just asking it to

build you a tracking for your kids's

allowance or or the trip to Tokyo or you

know those those kind of personalized

apps that are only useful your your

workout tracker that are only useful for

you and where you in the past would have

downloaded an app from the app store and

now and now you're using uh such an

Asentic system. Interesting. Oh, that's

that's fascinating. Do you think we're

going to the world where AI can generate

better ideas than us?

I think AI can help us to generate

better ideas because AI is also

incredibly powerful for your own

reflections like you know putting your

notes into into an AI system like JBT

and say hey what am I missing or what

else could I be thinking about or if you

take this and combine it with something

else what what could come out of this.

So I think the reasoning capabilities,

the chain of thought that that these AI

systems have combined with your own

ideas, with your triggers, you know,

with the things that you, you know, that

keep you up at night because you're so

excited about this. I think those still

come from the human, but the AI is going

to help us to explore those to put them

into a pitch deck or that's for the next

5 years. Let's talk about AGI. Do you

think it's going to be 2030? Depends on

depends on how you define AGI. So I have

to define AGI. AGI for you? I don't

know. I think you know the the arguments

are on both sides. On the one side you

could say the models that are powering

these AI agents today are already more

intelligent than what you and I could

do. Certainly in terms of how much

knowledge they have stored um uh uh you

know how they can reason over this

knowledge. How they even you know can

summarize things in in such a short

amount of time. You couldn't read you

know a 500page book and summarize it. So

they are more intelligent or more

capable and they've also seen all of the

ideas but they're not creative. I think

emotion plays a big role in in in

creativity. Um you know and they have no

emotion. Even Mr. Data and Star Trek had

no emotion either. And uh they're not

sentient. And I think if you define AGI

or ASI as that I I don't know how long

it will take because we haven't seen any

research of how you can implement

emotion within with an AI system. And so

we're going to be on a journey. Um, you

know, Whimo in San Francisco is is

fascinating what it is. Um, well, now

it's it's coming to more cities. Um,

self-driving cars, you know, feel like

AGIS. Um, I think VIP coding to some

degree feels like AGI. Um, but if you

define AGI as in it needs to have this

human instinct and the human, you know,

collaboration and the the idea in the

morning of doing something completely

new. I don't know how far away we are

from this. It's certainly not tomorrow.

Okay. So, you're not scared or are you

like I'm excited. What's your level of

So, you're not scared at all. I'm not

scared at all. Like, you know, as long

as I need still need to remind my kids

three times to empty the dishwasher.

As long as there is no robot that can

actually do that. Not even a prototype.

It's coming soon still. Like, um there

are already robots walking in Silicon

Valley like the Oh, but like they cannot

really take a plate out of the

craziness. That's the dishwasher. I'm

seeing the progress how fast it happens

and I'm not even like what do you teach

your kids what do you tell them like

what are they going to be when they grow

up what are the skills they need to

acquire now no I grew up in uh East

Germany before the war fell and I was 12

years old when Germany got reunited and

I tell them look you know you're growing

up in one of the most exciting times

that I have you know seen in my in my

life and there's so much technology

around you you can build a company today

not only out of a garage in Silicon

Valley you can build a company out of

garage anywhere in the world. Uh because

all you need is, you know, a good

internet connection, a laptop or even a

cell phone and a developer and a bit of

VIP coding. Well, but you can become a

developer if you want to. Everybody can

now become the developer. They don't

have to get access to books and

magazines and and and a computer club

that's only in their town uh or what

have you. And so I think from a software

developer perspective, it is it is the

most exciting time that developers have

lived in because the dream of software

development was always that I can take

the idea that I have in my head on a

Sunday morning and by the evening I have

the app in the up and running on my

phone, right? And the reality today is I

have the idea and then I'm trying to

figure out how do I take this problem

and convert it into source code and

libraries and you know how do I make

rounded corners on on an iPhone app and

and and those things and by by the time

it's night I haven't done anything. I

have basically bootstrapped the project

you know and set up a few things and

that was it. Yeah. So basically what

what what are you teaching your kids

entrepreneurship?

I'm teaching them to explore the world.

I'm teaching them, you know, to how to

solve problems on their own. I'm

teaching them or they're teaching

themselves how to use AI and um and I

think, you know, be curious and

open-minded. I feel like you're one of

the most positive people I interviewed

about AI because a lot of people are

like, I'm not sure probably 90% of the

shop are going to be gone, but you're

and I'm German and you're German. So,

it's very it gives me hope. Um what

would be like the last advice you would

give to people who are watching and who

still have fear that AI is going to take

their job?

Well, I think the best fear uh the best

way to work around the fear that you

have around your job is to adopt the

technology, learn about it, learn how to

use it, to up upskill yourself into

whatever the next job is going to be.

you know, if if you fear that your job

is going to be replaced um because AI

can do it, uh then the best path out of

that is to become the expert in using

this AI system because there's all I

think there's always going to be a human

that orchestrates that you know is the

conductor of all these AI agents. Okay.

So you don't see the future where AI

spots the problem, generates solution

codes. Well, look, you know, there's

reasons why we do responsible AI, why we

do, you know, where we test every model,

why there's security guard rails, red

teaming, all like, you know, teams

trying to hack the model, uh, figuring

out what the system prompt is, doing

prompt injection, that is certainly

things that we need to work on in the

same way that we need to work on

software security and traffic safety and

every technology that we have in life

has risks and and rewards and I think we

should focus focus on the rewards when

we want predict what the future is and

we should work on the risks on on our

day-to-day and make sure that the risks

don't materialize. Okay. So, your

favorite let's do top three favorite AI

apps. Well, of course, Copilot is my

number one as we're working on this. You

use it internally as well to code the

code. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody at GitHub,

not even not only the coders, everybody

is using C-pilot. So, in product

managers designers HR legal finance

everybody is using GitHub. Um that's the

nature of GitHub is that everybody is on

GitHub. um and is on copilot. Um I

really love you know chat GPT for like

my day-to-day you know other questions.

Um um I have it on my Mac on you know

control space and it just opens the

toolbar and I think more and more

replacing the typical internet search.

Sure. And um h what's the third AI

system that's my favorite? I have a you

know certain granola for example on my

app to transcribe uh calls. Um so that

comes to mind. And um I I I find that

really useful for example for

interviews. I think it's uh important to

call it out to the person you're talking

to that you're you know transcribing the

call and having AI uh write a summary.

Um but it's those things and then

obviously you know as I'm not very

creative in terms of painting and so

having you know uh uh one of these

models create an image for me for for

for PowerPoint presentation uh I find

that super useful as well. That's

awesome. Thank you so much for being so

positive about the future for this

conversation. Thank you.