Nat Friedman Explained

Nat Friedman
Birth Name:Nathaniel Dourif Friedman
Birth Date:6 August 1977
Nationality:American
Education:Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS)
Known For:CEO of GitHub (2018–2021)

Nathaniel Dourif Friedman (born 6 August 1977[1]) is an American technology executive and investor. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of GitHub and former Chairman of the GNOME Foundation. Friedman is currently a board member at the Arc Institute and an advisor of Midjourney.[2] [3]

Early life and education

Friedman attended and graduated from St. Anne's-Belfield School in 1996.[4]

In 1996, while a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Friedman befriended Miguel de Icaza on LinuxNet, the IRC network that Friedman had created to discuss Linux. As an intern at Microsoft, Friedman worked on the IIS web server. At MIT, he studied Computer Science and Mathematics and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1999.[5]

Career

In 1999, Friedman co-founded Ximian (originally called International Gnome Support,[5] then Helix Code[6]) with de Icaza to develop applications and infrastructure for GNOME, the project de Icaza had started with the aim of producing a free software desktop environment. The company was later bought by Novell in 2003.[7] [8]

At Novell, Friedman was the Chief Technology and Strategy Officer for Open Source until January 2010.[9] [7] [10] There he launched the Hula Project which began with the release of components of Novell NetMail as open source.[11] During his tenure, Novell began an effort to migrate 6,000 employees away from Microsoft Windows to SUSE Linux and from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org.[12] [13] [14] Friedman's final project before his departure was work on SUSE Studio.[7]

During his sabbatical, Friedman created and hosted a podcast called Hacker Medley with friend and former Ximian employee Alex Graveley.[15] [16]

In May 2011, Friedman and de Icaza founded Xamarin, with Friedman as CEO.[10] The company was created to offer commercial support for Mono, a project that de Icaza had initiated at Ximian to provide a free software implementation of Microsoft's .NET software stack. At Xamarin they focused on continuing to develop Mono and MonoDevelop and marketing the cross-platform Xamarin SDK to developers targeting mobile computing devices and video game consoles. In 2016, Xamarin was acquired by Microsoft.[17]

With the June 2018 announcement of Microsoft's $7.5 billion (~$ in) acquisition of GitHub, the companies simultaneously announced that Friedman, then a Microsoft corporate vice president, would become GitHub's new CEO.[18] [19] [20] [21] GitHub's co-founder and then-current CEO Chris Wanstrath had been leading a search for his replacement since August 2017.[22] [23] Friedman assumed the role of CEO on the 29th of October 2018.[24] During his tenure as CEO, Friedman introduced a number of new products rapidly, including GitHub Copilot, GitHub Codespaces, a native GitHub mobile app for iOS and Android, the GitHub Advanced Security product, GitHub Sponsors to support open source developers financially, and a new GitHub CLI. Friedman also acquired six companies including NPM, Semmle, Dependabot, and PullPanda. He helped grow GitHub to an estimated value of $16.5 billion (~$ in),[25] more than double what Microsoft paid for GitHub in 2018. In November 2021, Friedman announced that he was stepping down as CEO.[26]

Friedman co-founded California YIMBY in 2017 to address California's housing shortage.[27]

In 2023, Friedman created nat.dev, a web interface for popular large language models.[28]

Alongside Daniel Gross, Friedman also has made significant investments in the AI space through a fund called C2 Investments, as well as running an AI grant program that gives funding and Microsoft Azure credits.[29] During the depositor run on Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March 2023, Friedman provided capital to multiple startups.[30]

Personal life

He has been married to Stephanie Friedman (née Schatz) since 2009.[31] They live in Menlo Park, having moved there from San Francisco after a home-invasion.[32]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Nat Friedman Golden . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20231130045658/https://golden.com/wiki/Nat_Friedman-BRAG9 . 2023-11-30 . 2024-03-27 . Golden.
  2. Web site: Team Arc Institute . 2024-03-08 . arcinstitute.org.
  3. http://www.midjourney.com/home
  4. Web site: In the News. St. Anne's-Belfield School.
  5. Web site: The pre-history of Helix Code. https://web.archive.org/web/20131127002030/http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/helix-history.html. November 27, 2013. dead.
  6. Web site: Nat Friedman, in his own right. Amy Bennett. 20 March 2001. ITworld. 5 June 2018. 5 June 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180605064059/https://www.itworld.com/article/2799001/operating-systems/nat-friedman--in-his-own-right.html. dead.
  7. News: Ximian Founder Nat Friedman Leaves Novell . Linux Magazine Online . January 8, 2010. 2010-03-07 .
  8. Book: Kirk St.Amant. Brian Still . Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives . IGI Global . 2007 . 595. 978-1-59140-999-1 .
  9. Web site: Hitting the road. https://archive.today/20120529141845/http://nat.org/blog/2010/01/hitting-the-road/. May 29, 2012. January 8, 2010. dead. Nat Friedman. February 5, 2010. mdy-all.
  10. News: Xamarin. https://archive.today/20120711171811/http://nat.org/blog/2011/05/xamarin/. July 11, 2012. dead. May 25, 2011. mdy-all.
  11. Web site: The Hula Project. https://archive.today/20130415095407/http://nat.org/blog/2005/02/. April 15, 2013. dead. February 15, 2002. Nat Friedman. June 5, 2018. mdy-all.
  12. TLLTS Episode 71. The Linux Link Tech Show. February 16, 2005.
  13. Web site: Ximian's co-creator Nat Friedman entertains the future. February 23, 2005. June 5, 2018. June 12, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141017/http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/tip/11689.html. dead.
  14. Web site: Nat Friedman on the Future of Collaboration. Slashdot. February 24, 2005.
  15. Web site: Hacker Medley. https://web.archive.org/web/20170928063816/http://hackermedley.org/. September 28, 2017. dead.
  16. Web site: Alex Graveley - Principal Engineer - GitHub . LinkedIn. 2022-10-04.
  17. Web site: Microsoft to acquire Xamarin and empower more developers to build apps on any device. Official Microsoft Blog. 24 February 2016. February 24, 2016 . live. https://web.archive.org/web/20160224232629/http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/02/24/microsoft-to-acquire-xamarin-and-empower-more-developers-to-build-apps-on-any-device/. February 24, 2016 .
  18. Web site: Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion. June 4, 2018. June 4, 2018.
  19. Web site: A bright future for GitHub. Chris. Wanstrath. Chris Wanstrath. June 4, 2018. June 4, 2018. The GitHub Blog.
  20. News: Microsoft Agrees to Buy Coding Site GitHub for $7.5 billion. Dina. Bass. Eric. Newcomer. Bloomberg.com. June 4, 2018. June 4, 2018. Bloomberg.
  21. Web site: Microsoft buys coding platform GitHub for $7.5 billion. June 4, 2018. June 4, 2018. CNN. Rishi. Iyengar. CNN Money.
  22. News: GitHub's CEO to step down for the second time. August 18, 2017. Business Insider. 2018-06-28. en.
  23. News: GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath Plans To Step Down After Finding His Own Replacement. August 17, 2017. Forbes. 2018-06-28. en.
  24. News: Pull request successfully merged. Starting build…. natfriedman. 2018-10-26. The GitHub Blog. 2018-10-27 .
  25. Web site: Levy . Ari . GitLab grew up in GitHub's shadow — now it's worth twice what Microsoft paid for its chief rival . 2022-10-06 . CNBC . 17 October 2021 . en.
  26. News: Thank you, GitHub. natfriedman. 2021-11-03. The GitHub Blog. 2021-11-03.
  27. Web site: 2022-09-28 . California YIMBY Statement on Governor Signing Major Housing Legislation . 2022-10-06 . California YIMBY . en-US.
  28. Web site: March 24, 2023 . Nat Friedman via Twitter .
  29. Web site: Billion-Dollar AI Venture Fund Offers Elusive Nvidia Chips to Win Deals. June 20, 2023.
  30. Web site: Konrad . Alex . March 17, 2023 . Startups Asked For Help Making Payroll After SVB. VC Responses Were Mixed . Forbes.
  31. Web site: Ximian Founder Nat Friedman Leaves Novell » Linux Magazine.
  32. Web site: @natfriedman on Twitter: We moved out of San Francisco to Menlo Park a year ago after two meth addicts broke into our house while we were home and robbed us....

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