PeopleofSuperintelligence

Lab leader

Nat Friedman

Nat Friedman is a technology founder and executive whose career spans developer tools and AI leadership. He grew up in Charlottesville, went to MIT, cofounded Ximian and Xamarin, and led GitHub from 2018 to 2021. At GitHub, he announced Copilot; later, he helped launch the Vesuvius Challenge, where machine learning helped read Herculaneum papyri. An AI compute cluster built for his and Daniel Gross's venture portfolio grew into Andromeda's network of clusters. In 2025, Meta named him to partner with Alexandr Wang on AI products and applied research.

Photo of Nat Friedman

Timeline

  1. By 2003

    From MIT to open source

    Friedman grew up in Charlottesville and went to MIT. He had been online since 1991 and called the internet his hometown. By June 2003, he was Ximian's co-founder and vice president of product development, working on Mono and Red Carpet for Linux.

  2. 2016

    Taking Xamarin to Microsoft

    When Microsoft acquired Xamarin in 2016, Friedman was the company's CEO and a co-founder with Miguel de Icaza.

  3. 2018–2021

    Leading GitHub through change

    Friedman became GitHub CEO in October 2018 after Microsoft's acquisition closed. In November 2021, after three years in the role, he named Thomas Dohmke as his successor.

  4. June 2021

    An AI pair programmer

    In June 2021, Friedman announced the technical preview of GitHub Copilot, an AI pair programmer. The tool drew context from code in progress and suggested whole lines or functions.

  5. March 2023

    Reading scrolls with machine learning

    In March 2023, he partnered with Brent Seales and Daniel Gross to launch the Vesuvius Challenge. AI algorithms trained on scans of charred Herculaneum scrolls revealed the first complete passages.

  6. Since 2023

    Compute for an AI portfolio

    Andromeda has grown from one multi-thousand-GPU cluster built for Friedman and Daniel Gross's venture portfolio into dozens of clusters serving AI workloads.

  7. June 2025

    Products and applied research

    Meta put its AI teams under Meta Superintelligence Labs and named Friedman to partner with Alexandr Wang, overseeing AI products and applied research.

Sources and credits

Photo: David Sifry, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 2.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Nat Friedman nat.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Interview with Ximian’s Nat Friedman osnews.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. Mailpost:earlystory mono-project.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman on getting acquired by Microsoft techcrunch.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Pull request successfully merged. Starting build… github.blog. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. Thank you, GitHub github.blog. Checked 14 October 2026.
  7. Introducing GitHub Copilot: your AI pair programmer github.blog. Checked 14 October 2026.
  8. Students Decipher 2,000-Year-Old Herculaneum Scrolls neh.gov. Checked 14 October 2026.
  9. A view from billions of GPU-Hours andromeda.ai. Checked 14 October 2026.
  10. Meta restructures its AI unit under ‘Superintelligence Labs’ techcrunch.com. Checked 14 October 2026.