Tom Preston-Werner Net Worth

Tom Preston-Werner has an estimated net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes World's Billionaires List 2026, Tom Preston-Werner profile (figures as of Forbes World's Billionaires List 2026). That is down from a peak of $1.2 billion.

Tom Preston-Werner is an American software developer and entrepreneur known for helping build GitHub. He had already made a name in software before that by founding Gravatar in 2004 and selling it to Automattic in 2007. He also created projects used by developers, including Jekyll, TOML, and SemVer. His career has centered on tools that make software easier to build, share, and manage.

His biggest business success came from GitHub, the web-based Git repository hosting service he cofounded in 2008 with Chris Wanstrath, P. J. Hyett, and Scott Chacon. GitHub became a major place for developers to collaborate on code. In 2018, Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock. Preston-Werner later cofounded Chatterbug in 2016, a language-learning platform that added another software business to his track record.

How Tom Preston-Werner built his fortune

Most of Preston-Werner’s wealth comes from software companies he helped create. He founded Gravatar in 2004, a service that lets users keep the same avatar across different sites, and sold it to Automattic in 2007. He also worked at Powerset after moving to San Francisco in 2005. Alongside those business moves, he became known in open-source software through developer tools and standards such as Jekyll, TOML, and SemVer.

The main driver of his fortune was GitHub. He cofounded the platform in 2008, and it grew into a widely used service for hosting and collaborating on code. He was best known there as a cofounder and former CEO. In 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion, all in stock. After GitHub, he cofounded Chatterbug in 2016, a software company focused on language learning, extending his work beyond developer tools.

Forbes net worth timeline

Forbes has tracked Preston-Werner as a self-made billionaire in technology, with wealth tied to software. Forbes estimated his fortune at $1.2 billion in 2019 and kept the same estimate in 2020. Those valuations came after the Microsoft deal for GitHub in 2018, which was the clearest large-money event in his career. His profile also reflects his role as a founder whose wealth came from building software platforms rather than inheriting assets.

The latest published Forbes estimate is $1 billion on the 2026 World's Billionaires List. That lower figure still places him among notable software entrepreneurs in the United States. His money story is fairly straightforward: create products developers use, help build a large platform, and benefit from a major sale. Chatterbug, which he cofounded in 2016, shows that he continued starting software ventures after the GitHub chapter.