[datahead]

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]

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.

[spitfire]

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]

They were acquired by their old boss so less of a culture clash and no need for turf wars between opposing sides.

[Ryder123]

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]

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]

Would love to learn more about Newton - history and/or tech. Any resources on the web or anything interesting you may want to share?

[Ryder123]

Thanks for the correction - I’d entirely forgotten that Newton got spun off!

[atatatat]

Anyone have any insight on why Red Hat sold their soul?

[houseofzeus]

They were a publicly traded company and IBM offered something like $190 a share when they were trading around $120.

[rst]

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]

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.

[gonehome]

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]

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.

[rst]

"long-term profit" is the long-term financial returns to shareholders -- and corporate philanthropy is generally held to be justified in B-school circles only in so far as it builds up marketable goodwill (again, adding shareholder value), not for its own sake.

[ogre_codes]

This is why some companies and interests are better off staying private. SpaceX is a perfect example. Musk doesn't want to be accountable to shareholders for return on investment and annual results.

[ghaff]

At that point though, just about any reasonable actions can be justified even if they're not in the interests of immediate quarter earnings per share. And that's not what most people arguing that the board is legally required to maximize profits are talking about.

[analognoise]

"Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving?"

Because it's a tax write-off and makes for good press?

[paiute]

I expect IBM will be an Irish or similar company soon.

[na85]

What's an Irish company, in this context?

[simcop2387]

I believe they're referring to this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_as_a_tax_haven

[raverbashing]

It already is ;)

[jhallenworld]

Same as google..

https://www.google.com/maps/search/google,+dublin/@53.340165...

[shadilay]

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

[Sylamore]

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]

Boeing bought Mcdonnell and was subsequently taken over by MD profits over safety culture.

[BossingAround]

> in reality redhat became more like IBM

This is a pretty strong statement. How is Red Hat more like IBM now?