Tom Preston-Werner home

Blog Posts

• 22 Oct 2025 » Announcing PWV Fund I
• 30 May 2023 » RedwoodJS’ Next Epoch: All In on React Server Components
• 23 May 2022 » Major Version Numbers are Not Sacred
• 07 Apr 2022 » Introducing the Redwood Startup Fund
• 04 Apr 2022 » Announcing RedwoodJS 1.0 and $1M Funding
• 15 Jun 2020 » Committing $250k this Year to Racial Justice Efforts
• 23 Mar 2020 » We Are Giving $1M Toward San Francisco COVID-19 Response
• 04 Mar 2020 » Joining the Netlify Board to Help Shape the Future of the JAMstack
• 10 Nov 2016 » Snyk - Automatically Scan and Fix Ruby and Nodejs Vulnerabilities
• 19 Jun 2015 » Replicated - An Easier Path from SaaS to Enterprise
• 21 Apr 2014 » Farewell GitHub, Hello Immersive Computing
• 22 Nov 2011 » Open Source (Almost) Everything
• 03 May 2011 » Rejected Bio from The Setup
• 29 Mar 2011 » Ten Lessons from GitHub's First Year
• 11 Dec 2010 » Designer, Architect, Developer
• 18 Oct 2010 » Optimize for Happiness
• 23 Aug 2010 » Readme Driven Development
• 11 May 2010 » TomDoc - Reasonable Ruby Documentation
• 19 May 2009 » The Git Parable
• 17 Nov 2008 » Blogging Like a Hacker
• 03 Nov 2008 » How to Meet Your Next Cofounder
• 27 Oct 2008 » Looking back on Selling Gravatar to Automattic
• 18 Oct 2008 » How I Turned Down $300,000 from Microsoft to go Full-Time on GitHub

Highlighted Media

• 02 Sep 2013 » Article: WIRED - GitHub Is Going Mainstream
• 09 Nov 2011 » Video: RubyConf Argentina - Optimizing For Happiness
• 01 Oct 2011 » Video: RubyConf - GitHub Flavored Ruby
• 23 Nov 2010 » Video: Erlang Factory - Mastering Git Basics

Other Interviews, Talks, Etc

• 12 Sep 2013 » Video: Fox Business News interview
• 02 Sep 2013 » Article: WIRED - GitHub Is Going Mainstream
• 25 Jul 2013 » Video: O'Reilly Media - OSCON 2013 Interview
• 28 Dec 2012 » Article: NYTimes - Dreams of ‘Open’ Everything
• 20 Oct 2012 » Video: Startup School 2012 - People, Product, Philosophy
• 27 Sep 2012 » Video (Panel): Orrick - How to Build a Great Startup Culture
• 18 Jun 2012 » Article: GigaOm - 10 Innovators Changing the Game for Internet Infrastructure
• 02 Dec 2011 » Video: Northern Lights Conference - Leveling Up
• 12 Nov 2011 » Slides: RubyConf Uruguay - GitHub Flavored Ruby
• 09 Nov 2011 » Slides: RubyConf Argentina - Optimizing For Happiness
• 14 Apr 2011 » Video: ACCU Conference - Optimizing For Happiness
• 09 Apr 2011 » SitePoint Podcast: Social Coding with GitHub’s Tom Preston-Werner
• 10 Feb 2011 » Video: NCAR SEA: Unlocking the Secrets of Git
• 12 Jan 2011 » Maestros del Web: Tom Preston-Werner fundador de GitHub
• 11 Nov 2010 » Video: RubyConf 2010 - The Road from Ruby Hacker to Entrepreneur
• 16 Oct 2010 » Lambdaphant interview with Tom Preston-Werner
• 16 Oct 2010 » Video: Startup School - Optimize for Happiness
• 16 Sep 2010 » Video: @mail.ru Office Presentation
• 14 Sep 2010 » Video: @mail.ru Tech Forum in Moscow
• 11 Sep 2010 » Photo: FunConf Speech in Ireland
• 07 Sep 2010 » SchnitzelConf: Virality and Community
• 27 Aug 2010 » Video: Lone Star Ruby Conf Keynote
• 16 Aug 2010 » InfoQ: Erlang Factory Interview - Tom Preston-Werner and Kenneth Lundin
• 03 Aug 2010 » 37signals: Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: GitHub
• 17 Jun 2010 » WebPulp.tv: Interview with GitHub CTO Tom Preston-Werner
• 27 Apr 2010 » The Next Web 2010: Interview about Gravatar and Online Reputation
• 27 Apr 2010 » TNW 2010: What I Learned From Bootstrapping a Side Project Into GitHub
• 19 Nov 2009 » RubyConf 2009 Talk: BERT and Ernie: Scaling your Ruby site with Erlang
• 21 Aug 2009 » Linux Magazine: The GitHub Hall of Fame - Jekyll Review
• 27 Jul 2009 » Yahoo Developer Talk: Git, GitHub, and Social Coding
• 22 Jul 2009 » Envy Labs: 5 Days of OSCON Interview
• 30 Apr 2009 » Erlang Factory 09: Mixing Erlang and Ruby with Erlectricity
• 23 Apr 2009 » BusinessWeek: Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009
• 17 Jan 2009 » RubyFringe 2008: Conceptual Algorithms
• 09 Oct 2008 » InfoQ: Tom Preston-Werner on Powerset, GitHub, Ruby and Erlang
• 11 Jul 2008 » Rubyology 65: Powerset Stars 2 of 2
• 05 Jul 2008 » Rubyology 65: Powerset Stars 1 of 2
• 13 Jun 2008 » Web 2.0 Show: GitHub (Tom Preston-Werner & Chris Wanstrath)
• 02 Jun 2008 » Gregg Pollack: Dave Fayram and Tom Preston-Werner at RailsConf
• 29 May 2008 » RailsConf 08: Two talks
• 18 Oct 2007 » Gravatar Blog: Automattic Acquires Gravatar
• 16 Aug 2007 » Steve Newcomb Blog: Interview with Tom Preston-Werner
• 26 Dec 2006 » WordPress Podcast: Interview with Tom Werner
• 02 Apr 2005 » JoshuaInk: Seven and a half questions for Tom Werner

Noteworthy Open Source Projects and Specifications

• Jekyll: A simple, blog aware, static site generator (used for this site).
• Semantic Versioning: A meaningful method for incrementing version numbers.
• TOML: Tom's Obvious, Minimal Language.
• God: Ruby process monitoring framework with easy extensibility.
• Chronic: Ruby natural language date/time parser.
• TomDoc: Code documentation for humans.
• ProxyMachine: Layer 7 routing proxy in Ruby with Event Machine.
• Gollum: A simple, Git-powered wiki with a sweet API and local frontend.
• Grit: Object oriented Ruby bindings for Git (used by GitHub).
• Ernie: Ruby/Erlang Hybrid BERT-RPC server.