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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

#31

Post by BaronVonSteuben »

Longhanks wrote: post #19
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.

Indeed, that is my thought as well. If I worked there I'd want to stay as far away from this guy as possible. Red Hat seems like a pretty big company tho, so probably the average person never interacts with the CEO. But still, the tone gets set at the top, and will filter down.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#32

Post by zapita »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #30
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…

As someone who is a big fan of Red Hat, it horrifies me to see the new CEO be described like that. He sounds like one of the worst people for Red Hat. I admit I despise power seekers and people with tempers, so that's coloring my view a lot. I have always been optimistic about Red Hat's future, but this has me very worried. Red Hat has done so much good in the world, and it would suck to see them shrink or disappear.…

A counter-point is that, if you like Red Hat today, you will probably still like Red Hat in 5 years, because the new CEO played a key role in getting Red Hat to this point.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#33

Post by [deleted] »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #30
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…

As someone who is a big fan of Red Hat, it horrifies me to see the new CEO be described like that. He sounds like one of the worst people for Red Hat. I admit I despise power seekers and people with tempers, so that's coloring my view a lot. I have always been optimistic about Red Hat's future, but this has me very worried. Red Hat has done so much good in the world, and it would suck to see them shrink or disappear.…

[deleted]

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#35

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

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…

And this is supposed to be a good thing for the company that supposedly has open source and collaboration at its core?

Sounds like he'd be better suited to the IBM CEO role.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#36

Post by rwmj »

Longhanks wrote: post #19
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.

As an actual Red Hat employee (also someone who has seen Paul C both at a distance and close up for over a decade), it's a healthy and happy workplace. Also Paul has been effectively doing day to day running of Red Hat as long as I've been here, so I don't expect that much to change.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#37

Post by barkingcat »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #30
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…

As someone who is a big fan of Red Hat, it horrifies me to see the new CEO be described like that. He sounds like one of the worst people for Red Hat. I admit I despise power seekers and people with tempers, so that's coloring my view a lot. I have always been optimistic about Red Hat's future, but this has me very worried. Red Hat has done so much good in the world, and it would suck to see them shrink or disappear.…

Yah similar to zapita's reply below, if this person is a driving force in redhat's past, you probably won't see any changes if you liked what they were doing in the past.

Brings to light an understanding of things like systemd though. I can understand how a culture like this would promote systemd's "all or nothing" approach.

The thing is, this is how Redhat Wins and has been winning ... I think redhat won't disappear because of this leadership style, but this is how it has been getting contracts, making money, getting sponsorships, and being attractive enough to be bought by IBM.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#38

Post by CrankyBear »

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…

Paul's very good at what he does, but no one who knows him would say he's easy to work with.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#39

Post by notacoward »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #30
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…

As someone who is a big fan of Red Hat, it horrifies me to see the new CEO be described like that. He sounds like one of the worst people for Red Hat. I admit I despise power seekers and people with tempers, so that's coloring my view a lot. I have always been optimistic about Red Hat's future, but this has me very worried. Red Hat has done so much good in the world, and it would suck to see them shrink or disappear.…

When I joined Red Hat, I was pretty surprised to find such an "old school DEC" hardball player in charge of engineering. That's what Paul is, but he's not evil. He's effective, and at the most important level he does represent the values we associate with Red Hat (which he helped shape after all). I'd be far more worried if they'd brought in somebody from outside, or from another part of IBM.

Re: Paul Cormier Replaces Jim Whitehurst as Red Hat CEO

#40

Post by lowdose »

stingraycharles wrote: post #29
cachestash wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the co-CEO strategy, or two in box. Its becoming quite popular as of late.

Why is that? I can’t imagine it going well for an extended period of time.

It's a safety scapegoat, just throw the president under the bus.
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