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Tipping His Cap to Open Source
As COO at Delta Airlines, Jim Whitehurst (MBA 1994) helped bring the legacy carrier back from the brink of bankruptcy in 2006 while fending off a takeover bid by US Airways. That feat accomplished, he moved on to lead Red Hat, which builds open-source software products for business. “The whole model isn’t about gouging IP but adding value around it,” Whitehurst told The Business Times of Singapore. “It seemed [in 2008] like being a great way to be part of painting a new canvas.”
Whitehurst sees big shifts in the business landscape over the coming years, as open source’s free innovation model deconstructs the traditional software value chain at big tech employers like Oracle and IBM. “What are the boundaries of an organization going forward in a world where information and content are open or can be made open? Institutions as we know them classically today will not exist in 20 years.”
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