Silicon Valley Girl: AI, Tech and Career Growth - GitHub CEO: Why Now Is the BEST Time to Be a Developer | Thomas Dohmke

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

In this episode, Marina Mogilko interviews Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub — the world’s largest platform for developers. He shares why now is the most exciting time to be a developer, how AI is reshaping developers work, how “vibe coding” changes everything, and what skills actually matter in the AI-powered future of work.Links: Follow my Newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com⁠Companies & Products: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Marinamogilko.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconValleyGirl⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/marinamogilko⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/siliconvalleymm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. What would you say to coders for 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 would have stopped on hiring.

In two years, do you think I wouldn't need a developer? The idea that AI, without any coding skills, that's to just build a billion dollar business, is mistaken. Because 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 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 Tech 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 going on, what's happening.

Ooh, that's a tough question to start with. I think the looser interpretation from my side is that vibe coding means you open your IDE, you know, like co-pilot or cursive, and serve 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. You're not reviewing the code all the time. Yeah, and you don't have to learn how to code because 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 vibe 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 prompt it almost becomes a quiz or like a game, right? Like where you're trying to. Okay, so, hmm, let me try a different approach. I like to compare this to image models. 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 expect it. And then you start rewriting it, and for some time,

there were tricks to do that in Stability Fusion and Mid-Journey by doing things like trending on an art station. And then you got closer to what you wanted, but at some point you either run into a direction where you can't keep going anymore or you just take it and move it into Photoshop or in the world of co-pilot into VAS code. 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 is so deep, I guess, 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 let's say it's a Shopify shop

and make it scale for Black Friday, that is when you have to be a professional developer, at least for now. So 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 vibe 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 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 SaaS 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, a 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 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 think the idea that AI without any coding skills, let's just build a billion dollar business, is mistaken because if that would be the case, everyone would do it. And then everybody has a billion dollar company, which doesn't work, right? Who's paying the money? Exactly. Do you think we're going to have less or more developers in five years?

I think we are going to have way more developers because it's so much easier to learn it we talked about our kids earlier kids can just get into this by using co-pilot and then say hey how do I build a game and they see games you know when they go to school

when they talk to their friends when they go to a ski lodge and they have a Nintendo corner and so naturally kids when they explore 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 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 family or friends that can help you with that because they're all non-technical. So that's 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. 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 be those, the companies that are the smartest are going to hire more developers because if you 10X,

developer, then 10 developers can do 100 X. 100X. Yeah, it feels like we're moving with the developing, we're moving into what websites used to be 10 years ago, when suddenly there are tools like Suarez space, 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 take care of it. Correct. And you wouldn't start a business today where you're saying I'm building web pages for small businesses, right? Like every receive will tell you that's not differentiated. There's no mode. 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 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 deliver more. 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? think about that? I think it's 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. 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 in it 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 AI 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. 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 one X that they had before. And so you can keep going with that logic and you see that ultimately those companies are successful that use AI to accelerate, not to cut costs. But at the same time, we see big companies put a stop on hiring and they say like, hey, you need it 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, both, you know, in the political environment and in the tech environment of where things are going, and the natural tendency to do

is to go slower a little bit. And you 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. I'd 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 we're going to see an acceleration and you already see, you know, things like Mark Zuckerberg

getting the scale AI team into the company. I think that shows where Mark's headed. and where he believes the future is going to be, 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 biggest upside that young people have

is that they are adopting new technology much faster than those that are in our day-to-day. 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 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 those kind of things. And I think, though, the next generation of developers will grow up with AI.

In the same way that, you know, the Gen Z has grown up with smartphones. But 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 a set of agents is just going to be natural. Yeah.

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. They're going to have that on the trip. And of course, in their work environment, across, you know, the coding skills, but everything else as well. in professional life. Do you think everyone should try vibe 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 and enough AI systems like chat GPT and Claude that have some form of vibe coding built-in open AI launch. You have to copy the

code right and insert. Not with open AI has codex which which you know lets you do some of those things within within the open AI environment or chat GPT environment but you're right there's some tools where you still have to know how to deploy to put it and and what a GitHub repository even is or what GitHub is for that matter and then there's technologies like Versailles Vero lovable bolt 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 the experience is that you will get stuck right that's the nature of this is either you're not

asking deep enough or you're giving it. Or you just don't know what to ask. Not enough problems. Then you're probably getting it done, but it looks crappy or it's very simple. Or you're going really to the edge of the technology, and then you're going to get stuck if you don't know how to go into the source code and make modifications. But yeah, I think Menos is the other one, Menos, who is this Chinese startup that brought this agent to market where you can do wipe coding in the sense of a consumer specifies what they want to build, and then it builds you this web page or web app right in the chat tool. So you're never even launching anything or deploying it or any of the developer activities.

You're just asking it to build you a tracking for your kids' allowance or the trip to Tokyo or those kind of personalized apps that are only useful, 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 you're using such an agentic system. Interesting. Oh, 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 an AI system like chat GPT 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 could come out? of this. So I think the reasoning capabilities, the chain of thought 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 picture. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience ensuring millions of unique small businesses when it comes to your small business insurance. Thank you.

One size, absolutely does not fit all. to quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business. That's for the next five years. Let's talk about AGI. Do you think it's going to be 2030? Depends on how you define AGI. So I have to define AGI. What's AGI for you? I don't know. I think, you know, the arguments are on both sides. On the one side, you could say the models that are powering these AI is today are already more intelligent than what you and I could do. Certainly in terms of how much knowledge they have stored,

you know, how they can reason over this knowledge, how they even, you know, can summarize things in such a short amount of time. You couldn't read, you know, a 500-page 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 creativity. You know, and they have no emotion. Even Mr. Data and Star Trek had no emotion either. And they're not sentient. And I think if you define AGI or AISI, As that, I don't know how long it will take because we haven't seen any research of how you can implement emotion within the AI system.

And so we're going to be on a journey. Weimo in San Francisco is fascinating what it is. Everywhere. Well, now it's coming to more cities. Self-driving cars feel like AGI's. I think vibe coding to some degree feels like AGI. But if you define AGI as in it needs to have this human instinct and the human collaboration and the idea on the morning of doing something completely new,

I don't know how far where we are from this. It's certainly not tomorrow. Okay. So you're not scared. Or are you? I'm excited. What's your level of, so you're not scared at all? I'm not scared at all.

You know, as long as I 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. I think it's coming soon still. Like, they're 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 East Germany before the wall 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 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 a garage anywhere in the world. Because all you need is, you know, a good internet connection, a laptop,

or even a cell phone. And a developer, right? And a bit of vibe 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 a computer club that's only in their town or what have you. And so I think from a software developer,

perspective, 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 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 an iPhone app and those things and by the time it's night I haven't done anything I have basically bootstrap the project you know and set up a few things and that was it yeah so basically what were 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 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 little people are like, I'm not sure, probably 90% of the shop are going to be gone. And I'm German. And you're German. So it's very, it gives me hope.

What would be like the last advice you would give to people who are watching and still have fear that AI is going to take their job? Well, I think the best fear, 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 upskill yourself into whatever the next job is going to be. You know, if your fear that your job is going to be replaced because AI can do it, then the best path out of that is to become the expert

in using this AI system. Because 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. Look, you know, there's reasons why we do responsibly AI,

why we do, you know, where we test every model, where there's security guardrails, red teaming, like teams trying to hack the model, figuring out what the system prompt is, doing prompt injection. That is certainly things that we need to work on, and 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 rewards, and I think we should focus on the rewards when we want to predict what the future is, and we should work on the risks on our day-to-day and make sure that the risks don't 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. Yeah, everybody at GitHub. Not only the code, everybody is using Copilot. So in product managers, designers, HR, legal finance, everybody is using GitHub. That's the nature of GitHub is that everybody is on GitHub and is on co-pilot. I really love chat GPT for like my day-to-day, you know, other questions. I have it on my Mac, on, you know, control space, and it just opens the tuba and I think more and more replacing the typical internet search. And what's the third AI system? That's my favorite.

I have, you know, certain canola, for example, on my app to transcript calls. So that comes to mind. I find that really useful, for example, for interviews. I think it's important to call it out to the person you're talking to, that you're transcribing the call and having AI write a summary. But it's those things. And obviously, I'm not very creative in terms of painting. And so having one of these models create an image for me for PowerPoint presentation.

I find that super useful as well. That's awesome. Thank you so much for being so positive about the future. Thank you for having me. All. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino and San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Thank you.