<p>In this Foojay Podcast, we&#39;re celebrating a major milestone in Java development history: 25 years of IntelliJ IDEA.</p><p>Think about it: IntelliJ IDEA launched in 2000, and since then, it has become the go-to IDE for millions of Java developers worldwide. From its revolutionary code completion and refactoring tools to AI-powered features and the recent unified Community and Ultimate release, IntelliJ has shaped how we write Java, and keeps reinventing itself to stay ahead.</p><p>For this episode, I&#39;m joined by three people from the JetBrains team who know this story inside and out. Marit van Dijk, developer advocate and contributor to the Foojay community. Anton Arhipov, also a developer advocate at JetBrains. And Dmitry Jemerov, who has been part of the IntelliJ IDEA story for a very long time.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Guests</strong></p><p>Marit van Dijk</p><ul><li><a href="https://foojay.io/today/author/marit-van-dijk/">https://foojay.io/today/author/marit-van-dijk/</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/maritvandijk/" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/maritvandijk/</a></li><li><a href="https://mastodon.social/@maritvandijk" target="_blank">https://mastodon.social/@maritvandijk</a></li></ul><p>Anton Arhipov</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonarhipov/" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonarhipov/</a></li></ul><p>Dmitry Jemerov</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitry-jemerov-3a59b43a5/" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitry-jemerov-3a59b43a5/</a></li></ul><p><strong>Links</strong></p><ul><li><a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/" target="_blank">Website</a></li><li><a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/" target="_blank">Documentation</a></li><li><a href="http://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/" target="_blank">Blog</a></li><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/intellijidea" target="_blank">YouTube</a></li><li><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/showcase/intellijidea" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a></li><li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/intellijidea.com" target="_blank">Bluesky</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/intellijidea" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li><li><a href="https://foojay.io/today/foojay-podcast-81/">Foojay Podcast #81: Maven 4 – The Future of Java Build Automation</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwMXi6tDzLE" target="_blank">Video: IntelliJ IDEA: The Documentary | [OFFICIAL TRAILER] | Coming March 5th</a></li><li><a href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2024/10/22/introducing-mellum-jetbrains-new-llm-built-for-developers/" target="_blank">Introducing Mellum: JetBrains’ New LLM Built for Developers</a> </li><li><a href="https://www.jetbrains.com/mellum/" target="_blank">Mellum: Explore code-intelligent large language models for IDEs, AI assistants, research, and education</a></li><li><a href="https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/intellij-idea-25/" target="_blank">Birthday game website</a></li><li><a href="https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/29801-ide-survivors" target="_blank">Game plugin in IntelliJ IDEA</a></li><li><a href="https://foojay.io/today/youre-invited-to-intellij-idea-conf-2025/">You’re Invited to IntelliJ IDEA Conf 2025!</a></li><li><a href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2025/12/intellij-idea-unified-release/" target="_blank">The Unified IntelliJ IDEA: More Free Features, a Better Experience, Smoother Flow</a></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWoivKnqsyo" target="_blank">Video: Troubleshooting Spring Boot Applications with the Spring Debugger</a></li><li><a href="https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/25302-spring-debugger" target="_blank">Spring Debugger plugin</a></li><li><a href="https://webtechie.be/post/2025-09-18-jetbrains-intellijidea-plugin-recent-project-organizer/" target="_blank">Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA (and other IDEs) created by Frank: Recent Projects Organized</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Content</strong></p><p>00:00 Introduction of topic and guests<br>01:36 Now JetBrains started<br>02:31 Licensed software in an open-source world<br>06:37 Other JetBrains IDEs<br>07:46 Why Kotlin was created<br>08:50 The challenge of maintaining all the tools<br>10:36 How the guests joined JetBrains<br>14:03 IntelliJ versus IntelliJ IDEA, history of the name<br>15:10 Most important ongoing changes in IDEs<br>17:55 Unified distribution of IntelliJ IDEA and the history of the open-source version<br>21:28 The number of people at JetBrains<br>23:31 the &quot;business model&quot; behind Kotlin<br>24:39 The impact of AI, LLM, Chat interfaces,...<br>35:49 Upcoming evolutions in IntelliJ IDEA<br>38:07 About shortcuts and the many features and plugins in IntelliJ IDEA<br>46:36 Announcements: IntelliJ IDEA Conf 2026 and Documentary Trailer<br>48:35 The IntelliJ IDEA Birthday Game<br>49:24 Conclusions</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>