Is Red Hat trading it in for a Pilot's Cap?

Mitchell,

You wrote an entry using Stephen Shankland's blog as a reference. Stephen is a reputable guy, so I don't blame you for that. However, you did not read his quote of me correctly, leading you to conclude that Jim Whitehurst is a serial CEO who cannot hold a job. (What a strange accusation from somebody who proclaims themself to be a serial entrepreneur--but I digress.)

My original quote in question, which you could have referenced by clicking through on the link in Stephen's article was:

"But that's just because I have met hundreds of executives around the world representing every major industry and more than a few governments, and I've always been most impressed by those who tell me about the open source software they run at home and why. What a tragedy it would be to discount all that experience, all that knowledge, all that energy because the executive in question has a day job running a petrochemical company, a manufacturing company, a logistics company, a trading company, a bank, or a national government!"

I think you can see from the original quote that I was not talking about all the jobs that Jim had had in his career--he certainly was not President or Prime Minister of a sovereign nation prior to taking the job at Red Hat. Rather, the point that I made is that there are hundreds of high-achieving executives who have both the benefits of experience working in fields outside of open source software, as well as the knowledge of the value of open source in real-world situations. I endorsed the general idea of paying attention to broad, diverse, and authentic experience, not narrow-mindedly focusing on mere seniority in one single line of work. How strange to see that perverted into an incorrect conclusion that Mr. Whitehurst has had more carrers than The Great Imposter.