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I like Whitehurst and have had the chance to meet him a few times. If you want to understand his ethos check out "The Open Organization". It details his transit

I like Whitehurst and have had the chance to meet him a few times. If you want to understand his ethos check out "The Open Organization". It details his transition from Delta to Red Hat and the transformation of his leadership style being around a lot of smart engineers and team players ready to constructively challenge each other. Good read for anyone interested in building inclusive company culture in tech. Honestly, I thought IBM would be feel less rudderless with him at the helm. I wanted IBM to become more 'red' and not RH to become more 'big blue'- but it appears this isn't the case after all... seems like a short tenure. Anyone know more about the new leadership?

htrp 5y ago
In every acquisition the Acquirer imposes on the Acquiree..... In this case, I'd bet that it's Arvind Krishna pulling people out of IBM Cloud (his old division) to run the rest of "big blue" And yes, IBM will basically bleed talent from Red Hat for the next 3 years until RHEL is a pale shadow of its former self.
- paiute 5y ago
  I expect IBM will be an Irish or similar company soon.
  - na85 5y ago
    What's an Irish company, in this context?
    - simcop2387 5y ago
      I believe they're referring to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    It already is ;)
    - jhallenworld 5y ago
      Same as google.. https://www.google.com/maps/search/google,+dublin/@53.3401654,-6.2380077,16z https://www.google.com/maps/search/google,+dublin/@53.340165...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- spitfire 5y ago
  Exception to this rule was NeXT purchasing Apple for negative $400 million. Most of the NeXT senior staff (jabs, avi, etc) Went on to take over roles at Apple. They also brought in all the NeXT technology and threw out Apples' Nextstep/Openstep->Mac OSX
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    They were acquired by their old boss so less of a culture clash and no need for turf wars between opposing sides.
    - Ryder123 5y ago
      Steve Jobs had been gone for 12 years, there was plenty of culture clash and turf wars. Steve just managed to prevail. When he returned, the workforce was pampered and attached to projects that weren't going anywhere. Steve removed a number of perks, and killed some of the biggest, most internally popular projects (Newton and OpenDoc come to mind). Lot's of people left. But Steve came back to Apple as a savvy politician. He managed to get the board of directors in his back pocket, and sell his vision of Apple to the employees. Those that stayed, stayed because they came to believe in his vision, not because he placated them. I will say this though, I think there's a truth underneath your statement. Apple attracted people who wanted to change the world. The culture may have been different, but there was still a core motivation in Apple employees that came from Steve's original vision of computing.
      - wrs 5y ago
        Minor correction: I wouldn’t call Newton an “internally popular product”. At least, working on Newton I didn’t feel that way. And just before SJ came back, Apple had spun Newton out into a separate company because it wasn’t really fitting in. SJ spun it back in and killed it.
        eternalban 5y ago
        Would love to learn more about Newton - history and/or tech. Any resources on the web or anything interesting you may want to share?
- atatatat 5y ago
  Anyone have any insight on why Red Hat sold their soul?
  - rst 5y ago
    The decision was in the hands of a board whose sole legal goal, these days, is securing maximal financial return for shareholders (and the shareholders agreed -- there was an explicit vote). A soul is a luxury that companies don't usually get to keep past IPO.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Sole? No. No matter how many times people repeat it. Or, at least, companies can and do spend money on things that can be argued to be in service of the long-term profit and image of the company. Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving? That said, if someone makes an offer for a public company, the board does pretty much need to put it to a shareholder vote although they can negotiate for a higher price and ultimately make a recommendation. But it's up to the shareholders. They're the ones that own the company.
      - fossuser 5y ago
        This is why I'm in favor of founder controlled shares (Founder's Fund companies tend to do this - Zuckerberg at FB). Founder's retain total voting control of the company and can do what they think is in the best interest of the company. The board can complain and vote against it in favor of stupid short-term decisions that harm in the company, but in the end Zuck can tell them to fuck off and buy instagram because he thinks it's the right thing to do.
        ghaff 5y ago
        While I don't completely disagree, a Benevolent (or not) Dictator For Life can have it's own set of problems. And I'd not that it's generally not considered a great governance model for large open source projects--though that's obviously a somewhat different situation.
TheDong 5y ago
> leadership style being around a lot of smart engineers [...] building inclusive company culture in tech. Red Hat was certainly an open company. I don't know if "inclusive" is the right word though. "Inclusive" has strong connotations now of people being welcoming, especially of those that are different. This is largely anecdotal, but my interactions with Red Hat and external observations can better be summed up as "build a good-old-boys club of mostly white males who are regularly assholes" than "build an inclusive culture". I know those words are harsh, but the experiences I've had and have heard of are negative enough to warrant those words. From my perspective, Red Hat seems to have created a culture of hiring smart engineers and then giving them leeway to be assholes under the guise of "open communication" and "meritocracy". Honestly, memo list feels like a microcosm of this entire thing. It's a place where there originally were no guardrails under the guise of "free speech" and "openness", and it quickly devolved into a hostile place that made people feel anything but included.
- datahead 5y ago
  I'm curious if our interactions could be biased. For example, we're clients of RH (RHEL & Openshift) so I'm guessing we interact with more presentable humans. Everyone I've met has been genuinely wonderful and supportive across eng, sales, product, TAM, etc. One of the few vendors I enjoy working with. I used inclusive in this context to mean that a junior engineer is expected to speak up and offer input in an executive meeting if they have something to offer. Cutting through hierarchy, "good ideas come from everywhere". This could be idealistic but it helped me in eliciting input. I don't know what it's like to be on the inside or close periphery to daily core operations at RH. I agree and understand completely what you are saying. "Free speech" has (recently?) been a guise to act terribly toward each other in a number of settings. Trolls gonna troll. It's important to maintain decorum in the workplace and a culture that defies that can turn toxic quickly.
  - TheDong 5y ago
    My interactions have largely been meatspace and in open source communities they are heavily involved in (outside of k8s). We do seem to have either interacted with difference slices of the company, or gotten different impressions. Which is all well and good, an aggregate of anecdotes is better than just one.
shadilay 5y ago
This is exactly how I feel. I thought Jim would make IBM more like redhat but in reality redhat became more like IBM.
- Sylamore 5y ago
  That really shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody, certainly no one who has been through a corporate merger before. The aquiring company always makes promises they won't change the aquired company, the aquired company's management parrots that line and in the end, the aquired company always gets subsumed into the aquiring company.
  - shadilay 5y ago
    Boeing bought Mcdonnell and was subsequently taken over by MD profits over safety culture.
- BossingAround 5y ago
  > in reality redhat became more like IBM This is a pretty strong statement. How is Red Hat more like IBM now?

htrp 5y ago

In every acquisition the Acquirer imposes on the Acquiree..... In this case, I'd bet that it's Arvind Krishna pulling people out of IBM Cloud (his old division) to run the rest of "big blue" And yes, IBM will basically bleed talent from Red Hat for the next 3 years until RHEL is a pale shadow of its former self.

paiute 5y ago
I expect IBM will be an Irish or similar company soon.
- na85 5y ago
  What's an Irish company, in this context?
  - simcop2387 5y ago
    I believe they're referring to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven
- raverbashing 5y ago
  It already is ;)
  - jhallenworld 5y ago
    Same as google.. https://www.google.com/maps/search/google,+dublin/@53.3401654,-6.2380077,16z https://www.google.com/maps/search/google,+dublin/@53.340165...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
spitfire 5y ago
Exception to this rule was NeXT purchasing Apple for negative $400 million. Most of the NeXT senior staff (jabs, avi, etc) Went on to take over roles at Apple. They also brought in all the NeXT technology and threw out Apples' Nextstep/Openstep->Mac OSX
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  They were acquired by their old boss so less of a culture clash and no need for turf wars between opposing sides.
  - Ryder123 5y ago
    Steve Jobs had been gone for 12 years, there was plenty of culture clash and turf wars. Steve just managed to prevail. When he returned, the workforce was pampered and attached to projects that weren't going anywhere. Steve removed a number of perks, and killed some of the biggest, most internally popular projects (Newton and OpenDoc come to mind). Lot's of people left. But Steve came back to Apple as a savvy politician. He managed to get the board of directors in his back pocket, and sell his vision of Apple to the employees. Those that stayed, stayed because they came to believe in his vision, not because he placated them. I will say this though, I think there's a truth underneath your statement. Apple attracted people who wanted to change the world. The culture may have been different, but there was still a core motivation in Apple employees that came from Steve's original vision of computing.
    - wrs 5y ago
      Minor correction: I wouldn’t call Newton an “internally popular product”. At least, working on Newton I didn’t feel that way. And just before SJ came back, Apple had spun Newton out into a separate company because it wasn’t really fitting in. SJ spun it back in and killed it.
      - eternalban 5y ago
        Would love to learn more about Newton - history and/or tech. Any resources on the web or anything interesting you may want to share?
atatatat 5y ago
Anyone have any insight on why Red Hat sold their soul?
- rst 5y ago
  The decision was in the hands of a board whose sole legal goal, these days, is securing maximal financial return for shareholders (and the shareholders agreed -- there was an explicit vote). A soul is a luxury that companies don't usually get to keep past IPO.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Sole? No. No matter how many times people repeat it. Or, at least, companies can and do spend money on things that can be argued to be in service of the long-term profit and image of the company. Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving? That said, if someone makes an offer for a public company, the board does pretty much need to put it to a shareholder vote although they can negotiate for a higher price and ultimately make a recommendation. But it's up to the shareholders. They're the ones that own the company.
    - fossuser 5y ago
      This is why I'm in favor of founder controlled shares (Founder's Fund companies tend to do this - Zuckerberg at FB). Founder's retain total voting control of the company and can do what they think is in the best interest of the company. The board can complain and vote against it in favor of stupid short-term decisions that harm in the company, but in the end Zuck can tell them to fuck off and buy instagram because he thinks it's the right thing to do.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        While I don't completely disagree, a Benevolent (or not) Dictator For Life can have it's own set of problems. And I'd not that it's generally not considered a great governance model for large open source projects--though that's obviously a somewhat different situation.

TheDong 5y ago

> leadership style being around a lot of smart engineers [...] building inclusive company culture in tech. Red Hat was certainly an open company. I don't know if "inclusive" is the right word though. "Inclusive" has strong connotations now of people being welcoming, especially of those that are different. This is largely anecdotal, but my interactions with Red Hat and external observations can better be summed up as "build a good-old-boys club of mostly white males who are regularly assholes" than "build an inclusive culture". I know those words are harsh, but the experiences I've had and have heard of are negative enough to warrant those words. From my perspective, Red Hat seems to have created a culture of hiring smart engineers and then giving them leeway to be assholes under the guise of "open communication" and "meritocracy". Honestly, memo list feels like a microcosm of this entire thing. It's a place where there originally were no guardrails under the guise of "free speech" and "openness", and it quickly devolved into a hostile place that made people feel anything but included.

datahead 5y ago
I'm curious if our interactions could be biased. For example, we're clients of RH (RHEL & Openshift) so I'm guessing we interact with more presentable humans. Everyone I've met has been genuinely wonderful and supportive across eng, sales, product, TAM, etc. One of the few vendors I enjoy working with. I used inclusive in this context to mean that a junior engineer is expected to speak up and offer input in an executive meeting if they have something to offer. Cutting through hierarchy, "good ideas come from everywhere". This could be idealistic but it helped me in eliciting input. I don't know what it's like to be on the inside or close periphery to daily core operations at RH. I agree and understand completely what you are saying. "Free speech" has (recently?) been a guise to act terribly toward each other in a number of settings. Trolls gonna troll. It's important to maintain decorum in the workplace and a culture that defies that can turn toxic quickly.
- TheDong 5y ago
  My interactions have largely been meatspace and in open source communities they are heavily involved in (outside of k8s). We do seem to have either interacted with difference slices of the company, or gotten different impressions. Which is all well and good, an aggregate of anecdotes is better than just one.

shadilay 5y ago

This is exactly how I feel. I thought Jim would make IBM more like redhat but in reality redhat became more like IBM.

Sylamore 5y ago
That really shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody, certainly no one who has been through a corporate merger before. The aquiring company always makes promises they won't change the aquired company, the aquired company's management parrots that line and in the end, the aquired company always gets subsumed into the aquiring company.
- shadilay 5y ago
  Boeing bought Mcdonnell and was subsequently taken over by MD profits over safety culture.
BossingAround 5y ago
> in reality redhat became more like IBM This is a pretty strong statement. How is Red Hat more like IBM now?