The (Open) Source of Red Hat's Success

Continuing his great series of interviews with key people in the world of business open source, Matt Asay (does this man never sleep?) talks to Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat. I wrote a lot about Red Hat in the early days, but I've not followed it so closely recently (bad boy), so it was fascinating to get an update on what is arguably the most successful and most important open source company. In particular, I found this revealing:

In sum, our belief is that the best management is the peer process, just as in open source. If you measure up to your peers at Red Hat, you thrive. If you don't, you either change or self-select out. When you find people that can do things in an "honest way," without a mercenary view of their assignment, you win. A lot of people don't like this approach, and they leave.

In other words, the best way to run an open source company is to use the open source methodology. Imagine that.