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The Linux Missionary Who's Taking on Microsoft CEO Robert Young's zeal is helping Red Hat grab sales from Windows NT and creating buzz for an IPO. Will he make more inroads with a Net strategy? Spend any amount of time talking to Robert F. Young, and you realize the lanky Toronto native doesn't consider himself chief executive of Red Hat Software Inc. as much as chief missionary for the burgeoning Linux movement. The 45-year-old has a burning passion to spread the gospel of this up-and-coming operating system. His sermon: Thanks to Linux, computer users everywhere can finally be unshackled from the oppressive regime known as Microsoft. "Would you buy a car where the manufacturer had welded the hood shut?" he asks. "Of course not! But that's the case if you buy Microsoft's operating system." With Red Hat Linux, Young argues, "we're effectively freeing up the operating system. For the first time you gain real control over the operating system you run. And that's important to a lot of our customers."
But there is a certain irony in Young leading the charge for Linux, because he admits that initially he was a skeptic himself. After selling his Toronto-based computer leasing firm, Young kept busy by publishing a newsletter for his many former clients who used the Unix operating system. And it was his subscribers who turned him on to a new freeware version of Unix developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, then a student in Finland. Young admits he had some initial questions about whether Torvalds' program, Linux, would ever take off. But as the technology improved -- and the applications became more robust -- Young became a believer. And how! A CORNELL LACROSSE CAP. Ever the entrepreneur, Young created a Linux catalog in 1994, and, after being tipped off by readers to an enhanced version of Linux called Red Hat, he began selling every copy that its young creator, Marc Ewing, could produce. Young quickly struck a partnership with Ewing to ramp up production of his version of Linux, and the two financed their fledging enterprise by maxing out a half-dozen credit cards. In 1996, "we finally had enough money in the bank to pay for a moving truck," Young jokes. So he relocated his family to North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, where Ewing was working as a developer for IBM. The duo launched Red Hat Software -- named after the Cornell lacrosse-team cap Ewing inherited from his grandfather -- and set up shop in Ewing's apartment. Until, according to company lore, a toilet overflowed late one night and the landlord discovered their computer-laden setup -- and booted them out. That wasn't Red Hat's last move. Given its explosive growth, the company has outgrown its space and relocated four times since 1996 -- and at every juncture has resisted the urge to head to Silicon Valley, as several North Carolina tech companies have done. Young admits that he remained in North Carolina in part to avoid the bidding wars being waged in the Valley for talented developers. But Young also says that given both Red Hat's unique business model -- treating its software as a loss-leader in hopes of then signing corporate users to lucrative support contracts -- and it aim of taking on Microsoft, operating away from the herd seemed right. "There was this counter-intuitive benefit to being down here in the tobacco fields of North Carolina," Young recalls. "We didn't want to be surrounded by people who told us all the time we were nuts."
Given Microsoft's virtual lock on the operating system market, Young felt Red Hat had no choice but to break the mold. "You have to change the rules under which the game is played," he says. And, he argues, the Internet may help Red Hat make inroads against Microsoft just as the interstate highway system enabled truckers to overtake the railroad companies. "THE MAD HATTERS." There's no question Young appears to have succeeded in instilling an esprit de corps and a sense of mission among Red Hat's 127 employees. The company's twentysomething developers -- many sporting ponytails and Doc Martens -- proudly refer to themselves as "The Mad Hatters" and work out of cubicles decorated with red fedoras and stuffed penguins, the unofficial Linux mascot. To build camaraderie, Young, too, works from a modest cubicle, but his fashion flair is limited to the lucky red socks he wears each day. If Ewing is the technical brains behind Red Hat, Young has been the tireless salesman whose bold marketing maneuvers have made Red Hat virtually synonymous with Linux. (The publicity-savvy Young never passes up a chance to don one of the company's trademark red fedoras for photographers.) Clearly, Young relishes playing David to Microsoft's mighty Goliath. And unlike the many other software makers who go to great lengths to steer clear of Microsoft, Young has no fear of challenging Gates & Co. "Most of those [other] companies...built technology dependent on Microsoft's operating system, so Microsoft had the leverage -- and they chose to use it. [But] there is not one piece of Microsoft technology that Linux or Red Hat is dependent on," he says confidently. Strong words, yes, but not surprising. Young's a true believer. Foust is the manager of Business Week's Atlanta bureau _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
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 Robert Young, CEO of Red Hat Software RELATED LINKS Click here to visit the site mentioned in the story: Red Hat Software Click here to read related stories: "Can Red Hat Stay Red-Hot?" (BW--July 5, 1999) "Linux Takes Off -- But Where Is It Really Going?" (BW Online Special Report--Apr. 27, 1999) | ||||||||||||
