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Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

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Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#11

Post by cpetty »

abrowne wrote: post #6
williamstein wrote: post #5

Even more interesting > "Red Hat's CEO for the past 12 years moves to take on the role of IBM president"

Here's IBM release about that: https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-30-Arvind-Krishna-Elected-I... President seems like second-in-command, below CEO. (And the outgoing CEO was both.) Am I understanding that right?

Correct -- Ginni Rometty was CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board. She remains Chairman, while Arvind Krishna is now CEO and Whitehurst is President.

This is the first time in a while that the IBM President & CEO roles have been divided among two different people.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#13

Post by CameronNemo »

dang wrote: post #9
williamstein wrote: post #5

Even more interesting > "Red Hat's CEO for the past 12 years moves to take on the role of IBM president"

Has the article buried the lede? Should we make this the title above?

Whitehurst becoming IBM president is sort of old news, but I cannot find a discussion on HN about it. (only a few posts without discussion).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205335

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22198016

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22200653

There was discussion about the matter on the post about Arvind Krishna becoming IBM CEO, but it was somewhat buried:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22196489

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#14

Post by linuxftw »

mathattack wrote: post #10
fanatic2pope wrote: post #3

Wow, for the first time in decades I see a sliver of hope for IBM's relevance.

RedHat shares IBM’s model of “change the terms and product definitions every year and audit folks to death who can’t switch providers” They are going to irrelevance together.

I've worked with several large firms that had large footprints of Red Hat products and never heard about them being audited. You're confusing them with Oracle.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#15

Post by stuff4ben »

MelioRatio wrote: post #4

If anyone wants to find out more on what Cormier wants to focus on over the coming years, he did a small QnA: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/get-know-red-hat-president-an... It will be interesting to see, how his management style is going to impact Red Hat over the coming years. Considering his background and acumen, I feel like there is going to be a stronger focus on tailored services and specific solutions for org…

A lot of IBM products are in the cloud and the focus from Whitehurst as IBM president is that cloud, containers/K8s/RHOSP, and edge are the big things that will be going on. It will be very interesting to see how RH plays into the broader IBM strategy. Will RH become the platform and IBM becomes tooling, services, and products on top of that platform? Or will RH move to more consultancy and enterprise IT services? Coming from Cisco where the acquired company always gets folded into the mothership, I find it very interesting to see IBM's stance of keeping RH alone and mostly separate. At least for now...

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#16

Post by zapita »

Good for Paul. He has wanted the CEO job forever, and was notoriously bitter about being passed over last time.

Don’t expect a revolution in Red Hat’s strategy or culture. Paul was already extremely influential, especially on product and R&D which are not Jim’s strong suits.

Things to know about Paul:

- He is very competitive and has a zero-sum approach to competition: for him to win, someone else has to lose.

- He has a bad temper. If you work on the same floor as him, you will hear yelling.

- He doesn’t shy away from Oracle-style tactics. Expect customer audits to get more hardball; more aggressive use of anti-competitive bundling (“if you use this competitor’s product on RHEL, we will not support that RHEL host”).

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#18

Post by lowdose »

cpetty wrote: post #11
abrowne wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's IBM release about that: https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-01-30-Arvind-Krishna-Elected-I... President seems like second-in-command, below CEO. (And the outgoing CEO was both.) Am I understanding that right?

Correct -- Ginni Rometty was CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board. She remains Chairman, while Arvind Krishna is now CEO and Whitehurst is President. This is the first time in a while that the IBM President & CEO roles have been divided among two different people.

The president title was a thing for people claiming the top spot without being the founder. It doesn't make sense to split CEO & President role between two people, but when the fable is told long enough the people who tell believe it themselves.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#19

Post by Longhanks »

zapita wrote: post #16

Good for Paul. He has wanted the CEO job forever, and was notoriously bitter about being passed over last time. Don’t expect a revolution in Red Hat’s strategy or culture. Paul was already extremely influential, especially on product and R&D which are not Jim’s strong suits. Things to know about Paul: - He is very competitive and has a zero-sum approach to competition: for him to win, someone else has to lose. - He h…

Sounds like a unhealthy place to work at.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#20

Post by cachestash »

zapita wrote: post #16

Good for Paul. He has wanted the CEO job forever, and was notoriously bitter about being passed over last time. Don’t expect a revolution in Red Hat’s strategy or culture. Paul was already extremely influential, especially on product and R&D which are not Jim’s strong suits. Things to know about Paul: - He is very competitive and has a zero-sum approach to competition: for him to win, someone else has to lose. - He h…

Agree with this, he is no wall flower. Its harder to meet someone more passionate about Red Hat than Paul.
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