PRESTON-WERNER, Tom

PRESTON-WERNER, Tom. (Dubuque, IA, May 27, 1979-- ). A graduate of DUBUQUE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL, Preston-Werner began programming on a computer with no hard-drive. He attended Harvey Mudd College in southern California for about two years before leaving to pursue computer programming projects on his own. (1)

In 2008 Preston-Werner with co-founders Chris Wanstrath and P. J. Hyett started GitHub which helped companies and developers build software. GitHub let developers working on open-source projects use its service for free. Individuals and companies wanting to use the GitHub tools in private were required pay a monthly subscription for a cloud service that ranged from $7 to $200. An Enterprise Plan existed for companies that wanted to take the GitHub software and run it in their own data centers for maximum control and security. (2) The business remained small until 2011. By May of that year, GitHub had become the Web's most popular open source code repository site. (3)

In 2012 GitHub received a $100 million investment from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. (4) In May 2013 it was named one of the 100 brilliant companies of 2013 by Entrepreneur magazine.

In June 2013, the site had 3.5 million users and hosted 6.8 million software projects. Among the users were the White House which had mobile apps for iPhone and Android and an app called "We the People." The University of Iowa Libraries had several projects on GitHub including an open-source tool for viewing and transcribing its digital files. Security is important for businesses, and the company receives a fee for clients who want to make sure their projects are private. (5)

He resigned from GitHub in 2014. Preston-Werner is also the creator of the avatar service Gravatar, the TOML configuration file format, the static site generator software Jekyll, and the Semantic Versioning Specification (SemVer). As of 2023, he and his wife have committed to The Giving Pledge—a promise to give away or donate a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. (6)

Following his resignation from GitHub, Preston-Werner sold his shares in the company to Microsoft. Along with a team of former GitHub co-founders and executives, Preston-Werner then cofounded Chatterbug, a software for language-learning. In 2018, Chatterbug cofounder Scott Chacon announced an $8 million (~$9.56 million in 2023) series A funding round for the company, financed by himself and Preston-Werner. Preston-Werner, a hacker himself, has hosted AMA-style events for student hackers, such as for Hack Club, at the Def Hacks Virtual 2020 hackathon, and Dubhacks 2020. (7)

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Source:

1. Schmidt, Eileen Mozinski. " 'Small Side Project' " Becomes Booming Computer Business," Telegraph Herald, June 18, 2013, p. 3A

2. Vance, Ashlee. "GitHub Got Silly Rich. Next Step: Make More Awesome." http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-20/github-got-silly-rich-dot-next-step-make-more-awesome

3. Wikipedia-GitHub

4. Vance

5. Schmidt

6. Wikipedia-Tom Preston-Werner

7. Ibid.