“The computer industry is so competitive, people really have a hard time getting used to the notion that maybe sometimes you can agree to be friends.” - Linus Torvalds
January 1999: The Idea
Path to the Public
1991 Linus begins work on the Linux kernel.
1995 Bob Young and Mark Ewing found Red Hat.
August 1997 Publisher Frank Batten Jr. becomes the largest individual shareholder, investing $2 million in exchange for 25 percent of the company.
September 1998 Intel, Netscape, and VC firms Benchmark Capital and Greylock Management announce investments in Red Hat totaling $8 million.
November 1998 Matthew Szulik hired from Relativity Technologies to serve as President.
January 1999 IPO discussions begin at Red Hat.
March 1999 Compaq, IBM, Novell, Oracle, and SAP announce equity investments in Red Hat. $7 million raised.
June 1999 Red Hat announces $96.8 million IPO plan.
August 11, 1999 Red Hat begins trading. Priced at $14 per share, the stock opens at $46 and closes at $52.06. Cumbersome SEC requirements and snafus turn an attempt to disburse shares to the open source community into a PR nightmare.
September 1999 Red Hat’s stock hits $135 per share, making the company worth $4.7 billion.
At a quarterly board of directors meeting for a small software company in Triangle Park, North Carolina, a drama was unfolding. The Linux distribution vendor Red…
Please log in to view this content.
Not Yet a Member?
Register with LinuxMagazine.com and get free access to the entire archive, including:
