“Bob Young, CEO of Red Hat Software Inc., has emerged from his
company’s post-IPO “quiet period” with a stock price of 110 and a
company valuation exceeding that of Novell Inc. Not bad for a
company that began its initial public offering last month at a mere
$14 per share. But now the bigger question looms: Can Red Hat
execute?”
“All revolutions require a partnership between the people at the
barricades and the capital markets that will fund and support them.
In the American Revolution, we think about Patrick Henry and all
that, but it was the New England merchants that fueled the
revolution. We now have the resources to drive this ‘revolution.’
We’ve opened Japanese and European offices and a big California
office. Geographic expansion is important to us. But we will scale
through internal growth and acquisition of resources where we don’t
think we can grow them internally.”
“This term “Linux community” and the implication to
outsiders that the community is cohesive — it has never been
cohesive. It is, far and away, the most argumentative, acerbic
group I have ever had the misfortune to be a part of. But don’t get
me wrong. That has been good for the technology. It’s a
community that values the truth and values engineering excellence
over marketing and compromise.”