Nat wasn't originally at Github. He was already at Microsoft through the Xamarin acquisition and was installed as Github CEO post acquisition.

Management changes all the time, People change all the time, hell, Microsoft has changed... If anything, Microsoft evolved around GitHub and it's for the better in doing so.

Embrace, extend, extinguish still alive at MS it seems.

E: Pointing out proven, explicitly-defined-in-internal-emails tactics used by Microsoft always seems to get downvoted on HN. Why? Would someone like to start a conversation?

What are they extinguishing? Which things do you think they extended?

Pointing out stuff from decades ago doesn’t really count as still proven tactics.

Though of course all major companies do behave and do things like EEE in different ways.

> What are they extinguishing?

All build tools that MS doesn't control. Their strategy has always been to try lock developers into their ecosystem so that only their ecosystem has all the software people want.

> Which things do you think they extended?

Acquiring and extending both Xamarin and Github. Atom editor is basically dead, MS/Github created an AI tool that presumably uses data they got from Github, they tried to remove features from free .NET tools, etc...

How long until they try to apply some more blatant vendor lock-in techniques with Github, .NET/Mono or maybe Azure?

Tactics that were true 20+ years ago are not necessarily still true today. The E E E trope is pithy and a shared cultural experience in our history. This does not immediately imply it is true now. You made no supporting argument as to why this announcement is an example of E E E. As such it contributed little to 0 content to the discussion. I suspect that is why you are getting downvoted in this instance.

I wasn't responding to the announcement. I responded to the comment above me.

Start a new discussion post instead of tagging into the current one.

My comment is in direct response to the parent comment, so no. This is on-topic.

Context or Details!! What will they extinguish Github??

I'm with you, but this is not the topic.

He had to stay on until he was free to leave under the microsoft acquisition contract. 2 years sound about right.

That's not what happened here.

Nat founded Xamarin which was acquired by Microsoft in 2016. Github was acquired in 2018 and Nat was already an Microsoft employee at time.

So Nat departing now is actually 5 years post the Xamarin acquisition (when he joined Microsoft).

https://www.linkedin.com/in/natfriedman/

EDIT: what's also interesting is that Thomas Dohmke joined Microsoft in 2015, moved to the Github division around the time of the acquisition (2018) but only became CPO 4 months ago.

We don't actually know one way or another. Golden handcuffs are very common in the industry and it's very easy to imagine that becoming CEO of very public and important subdivision of a cloud company comes with a very large stock option grant. Easily 8-figures worth. When/how they expire are also a mystery to us. I'm sure he didn't get the standard engineer vesting schedule of 4-years with a 1-year cliff.

Thomas' own blog sounded a bit like he was the special task manager. So do not read too much into this 4 months.

I wonder if he stick with Microsoft long enough would he have a chance of becoming the next M$ CEO.

Many people within Microsoft felt that he was a clear contender for Satya's eventual successor.

Damn. Satya is 54, within 10 years he could definitely be the CEO. But I guess most entrepreneur just dont like sticking around and not building.