Founder Profile
Scott Chacon
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Scott Chacon?
Scott Chacon is a founder of GitHub, Inc., which was founded in 2008 with Chris Wanstrath, Tom Preston-Werner and P. J. Hyett.
- Company founded
- GitHub, Inc.
- Founded
- 2008
- Co-founders
- Chris Wanstrath, Tom Preston-Werner and P. J. Hyett
Background
Scott Chacon specialised in the Git version control system and in Ruby programming, and was regarded as one of the leading experts on how Git works.
Founding Story
Scott Chacon is an American software developer and the fourth co-founder of GitHub. Tom Preston-Werner and Chris Wanstrath recruited him in 2008 because of his expertise in the Git version control system. As GitHub's Chief Information Officer he helped scale the platform's backend and promoted Git to developers, including by writing the book 'Pro Git'. GitHub was later sold to Microsoft for $7.5 billion. After leaving, Chacon co-founded the language-learning platform Chatterbug and the version control client GitButler. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Sources
This profile does not yet cite a source specific to Scott Chacon. The sources below document the company company rather than the person, so check them against the claims above.
- Microsoft Corporation SEC filings (GitHub, Inc.)
- TechCrunch: Microsoft says GitHub now has a $1B ARR, 90M active users (GitHub, Inc.)