GitHub is facing outages, security issues, and employee exits. When Microsoft announced it was acquiring GitHub in a $7.5 billion deal in 2018, developers were nervous. Some worried about Microsoft’s control of GitHub, while others took a wait-and-see approach. Nearly eight years later, GitHub is struggling to survive amid mounting outages, security issues, and pressure from competitors.
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In recent weeks, GitHub has faced multiple major outages, a remote code execution vulnerability disclosure, and its internal code repositories were compromised due to a “poisoned” VS Code extension on an employee’s device. Current and former GitHub employees describe a company struggling with a lack of leadership and growing pressure from competitors.
Many of GitHub’s current problems can be traced back to last summer, when former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmkeresigned, causing a significant shakeup in the company’s operations under Microsoft control. Microsoft did not replace Dohmke’s CEO position, leading the rest of GitHub’s leadership team to report directly to CoreAI . GitHub employees, who call themselves Hubbers, are struggling to adjust after so many years of independence.
The CoreAI team, under which GitHub operates, is led by former Meta engineering chief Jay Parikh, whom Microsoft CEO Satya Nadellapersonally hired last year to help transform the company into AI. Sources indicate that Parikh is not well-liked by Microsoft employees and that it was his decision not to appoint a new CEO for GitHub.
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Since Dohmke's departure, there has been a continued exodus of talent from GitHub. Some employees have followed Dohmke to his new startup, Entire, which appears to be a direct competitor to GitHub. Of the 30 employees listed at Entire, at least 11 previously worked at GitHub.
In addition to concerns about startups like Entire, Parikh is reportedly worried about competition from Cursor and Claude Code. While GitHub Copilot had an early lead in the AI coding wars, it has fallen behind competitors over the past year. The Information reported that Parikh has privately warned his colleagues that GitHub “faces a critical threat.” Microsoft has also reportedly considered acquiring Cursor in recent months to help close the gap with GitHub Copilot. In addition, Microsoft is canceling many of its own Claude Code licenses to encourage developers to improve GitHub Copilot.
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Microsoft will need top talent to keep up with the competition, but leadership turmoil and departures continue. Veteran Microsoft executive Julia Liusonannounced her departure last month after 34 years at the company. GitHub previously reported to Liuson before the creation of CoreAI last year, and she was responsible for overseeing GitHub’s revenue, engineering and support after Dohmke left. Jared Palmer, who joined GitHub in October as a senior vice president, is already leaving.
