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Chris Wanstrath

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Chris Wanstrath
Wanstrath in 2023
Born (1985-03-13) March 13, 1985 (age 39)
Ohio, US
Known forCo-founder and former CEO of GitHub

Chris Wanstrath (born March 13, 1985) is an American technology entrepreneur and programmer. He is the founder of Null Games, and the co-founder and former CEO of GitHub, an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. Wanstrath co-founded GitHub in 2008 and sold it to Microsoft in 2018. Before starting GitHub, he worked with CNET on GameSpot and Chowhound. In addition to GitHub, he created the Atom text editor, Ruby's Resque job queue, the Mustache templating language, and the pjax JavaScript library.[1] According to Forbes his net worth is estimated at US$1.8-2.2 billion[2] and is listed in America's richest entrepreneurs under 40,[3] as well as Fortune's 40 under 40[4] and he was named in CNBC's Disruptor 50 list.[5]

Early life

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Wanstrath was born on March 13, 1985. From a young age, he loved video games, and wanted to create his own.[6] He graduated from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati in 2003 and briefly studied English at the University of Cincinnati.[6][7] He left the university after getting a job in San Francisco at CNET Networks.[6]

Career

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Before the success of GitHub, Wanstrath ran a Ruby on Rails consulting shop with PJ Hyett (a GitHub co-founder). Prior to this, Wanstrath was at CNET Networks, where he worked on GameSpot and the launch of Chowhound.[8][6][9][10] He was a completely self-taught programmer until his job with CNET.[8][6][10]

In 2008, Wanstrath co-founded GitHub and the service had 100,000 users by July 2009.[11][12] It was named to CNBC's Disruptor List five times between 2008 and 2018.[11] While at GitHub he created the Electron Software Framework.[13] Wanstrath served as its CEO until the Series A round of funding in 2012[14] and then president until 2014 at which time he returned to the CEO role.[11][15] He was CEO until October 2018.[12] At the time, GitHub had close to 1000 employees, over 20 million users, and $300 million in annualized recurring revenue.[16]

In June 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion (~$8.96 billion in 2023) in an all-stock deal.[17][3] At the time, GitHub was the world's largest host service for software code.[10] In addition to GitHub, Wanstrath created the job queue program Resque,[6][18] the Mustache templating language,[19] and the Atom text editor.[20][21][22] He's also created the pjax JavaScript library.[23]

Wanstrath is on the board of trustees for the Computer History Museum.[24]

In 2023 Wanstrath announced the development of a new game developer platform called Void, scheduled to launch in 2024.[25]

Null Games

[edit]

In February 2023, announced a new games publishing studio, Null Games.[26] Null helps developers with marketing, development costs, porting, and publishing.[27] The company's first released title was a hockey-based rogue-lite called Tape to Tape, developed by Excellent Rectangle.[28][29][30] In its first week, 34,020 units of the game were sold.[30] Null Games states on its website that it will not “publish mobile games or games with gambling, loot boxes, or any other player-hostile behavior.”[31][28][29]

Speaking Engagements

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Wanstrath was a speaker at NASA’s open source summit.[8] He has given keynote talks at the International RailsConf, Startup Riot Atlanta, Rails Summit Latin America, and different regional and international conferences.[8] He gave the keynote addresses at the Esri Developer Summit in 2014, at the GitHub Universe Conference from 2015 to 2017 and the GitHub Satellite Conference in 2016 and 2017.[32][33]

References

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  1. ^ Metz, Cade. "GitHub Atom's Code-Editor Nerds Take Over Their Universe". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved June 14, 2023.
  2. ^ "The 28 youngest billionaires in tech, from Stripe's founders to the owner of TikTok". Business Insider. March 14, 2020. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Forbes Profile - Chris Wanstrath". Forbes.
  4. ^ "Fortune : 40 Under 40".
  5. ^ "CNBC Disruptor 50 – Chris Wanstrath". CNBC. May 12, 2015.
  6. ^ a b c d e f GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath shares his story, University of Cincinnati
  7. ^ "Alumni X-cerpts". St. Xavier High School Magazine. Cincinnati, Ohio: St. Xavier High School. Winter 2014. p. 21 – via Issuu.
  8. ^ a b c d "NASA : Open Source Summit Speaker - Chris Wanstrath". Archived from the original on March 15, 2011. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  9. ^ "Chris Wanstrath". CHM. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  10. ^ a b c Jr, Tom Huddleston (June 4, 2018). "How this 33-year-old college dropout co-founded GitHub, which just sold to Microsoft for $7.5 billion". CNBC. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  11. ^ a b c Jr, Tom Huddleston (June 4, 2018). "How this 33-year-old college dropout co-founded GitHub, which just sold to Microsoft for $7.5 billion". CNBC. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  12. ^ a b Konrad, Alex. "GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath To Step Down After Finding His Own Replacement". Forbes. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  13. ^ "Many Companies Use Electron To Build Desktop Applications – JojoCms". www.jojocms.org. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  14. ^ "Why GitHub abandoned the bootstrapper's ship for a $100M Series A". VentureBeat. July 9, 2012. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  15. ^ "GitHub President Becomes CEO, CEO Becomes President In Executive Role Swap". January 21, 2014.
  16. ^ Novet, Jordan (August 18, 2017). "The CEO of $2 billion start-up GitHub is stepping down". CNBC. Retrieved July 19, 2023.
  17. ^ "Microsoft finalizes its $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition". ZDNET. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  18. ^ Resque, Resque, July 20, 2023, retrieved July 21, 2023
  19. ^ "Electron vs Handlebars.js | What are the differences?". StackShare. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  20. ^ "Another Weird PC Design, This One Intentionally Hilarious". Core77. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  21. ^ Lardinois, Frederic (June 25, 2015). "GitHub's Atom Text Editor Hits 1.0, Now Has Over 350,000 Monthly Active Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  22. ^ Metz, Cade. "GitHub Atom's Code-Editor Nerds Take Over Their Universe". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  23. ^ "How to build a fast website". Insight-led web analytics / Volument. November 30, 2022. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
  24. ^ "Leadership". CHM. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
  25. ^ "GitHub cofounder Chris Wanstrath teases new game development engine". Shacknews. September 15, 2023. Retrieved May 30, 2024.
  26. ^ "GitHub founder launches Null Games publishing studio". VentureBeat. February 1, 2023. Retrieved July 13, 2023.
  27. ^ "Github co-founder Chris Wanstrath forms publisher Null Games". Game Developer. February 1, 2023. Retrieved July 19, 2023.
  28. ^ a b "GitHub founder launches Null Games publishing studio". VentureBeat. February 1, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  29. ^ a b Bartelson, Eric (May 10, 2023). "Tape to Tape by Excellent Rectangle is the world's first hockey roguelite". PreMortem Games. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  30. ^ a b "Tape To Tape: How an indie sports title generated amazing sales – How To Market A Game". May 16, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  31. ^ "Github co-founder Chris Wanstrath forms publisher Null Games". Game Developer. February 1, 2023. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
  32. ^ Peterson, Becky. "The CEO of GitHub, which caters to coders, thinks automation will bring an end to traditional software programming". Business Insider. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
  33. ^ Governor, James (May 26, 2017). "Just how many darned developers are there in the world? GitHub is puzzled". James Governor's Monkchips. Retrieved August 15, 2023.


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