Nathaniel Dourif Friedman (born 6 August 1977[1]) is an American technology executive and investor.

[5] In 1999, Friedman co-founded Ximian (originally called International Gnome Support,[5] then Helix Code[6]) with de Icaza to develop applications and infrastructure for GNOME, the project de Icaza had started with the aim of producing a free software desktop environment.

[9][7][10] There he launched the Hula Project which began with the release of components of Novell NetMail as open source.

[7] During his sabbatical, Friedman created and hosted a podcast called Hacker Medley with friend and former Ximian employee Alex Graveley.

[18][19][20][21] GitHub's co-founder and then-current CEO Chris Wanstrath had been leading a search for his replacement since August 2017.

[29] During the depositor run on Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March 2023, Friedman provided capital to multiple startups.