You can make a lot of money on open source (Red Hat, Wordpress.com, etc), but you have to approach it from a whole different perspective and business model. Wh

You can make a lot of money on open source (Red Hat, Wordpress.com, etc), but you have to approach it from a whole different perspective and business model. What is definitely a lot more difficult, even impossible, is the insane level of valuation that closed/proprietary companies have (ie, facebook, twitter, etc). Which means that your valuation will have to more accurately reflect your revenues and profits. Which may not be a bad thing. It definitely makes it harder starting out, VC's are still very wary of open source, but it keeps you more honest in the long run. If you're looking to get big fast, and cash out early, go proprietary, and ride the wave. If you want to build a solid company, you can definitely do that with open source.