a16z Podcast

The Open Source CIO

Feb 28, 2020

Peter Levine, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and Mike Kelly, CIO of Red Hat, dive into the evolving role of open source in today’s tech landscape. They discuss Red Hat's pioneering approach and how its business model has shaped the SaaS revolution. The conversation explores the shift from on-premise solutions to open hybrid architectures, the strategic navigation of IT investments, and the critical balance between innovation and operational excellence. Plus, they share insights on the nuances of successful acquisitions in the tech world.

20:17

Creator website

Episode guests

Mike Kelly

Peter Levine

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Intro

2min

The Evolution of Open Source in the Cloud Era

6min

From Projects to Products: Navigating IT Investments

4min

Balancing Innovation and Operational Excellence in IT

2min

Navigating Company Acquisitions

7min

In 2014, in "Why There Will Never Be Another Red Hat," Peter Levine argued that Red Hat’s open source business model of commercializing support and services was highly difficult to replicate. Instead, he predicted the future of open source companies would be open source-as-a-service. And today SaaS has emerged as the dominant business model.

In this podcast, recorded as a hallway-style conversation as part of the a16z Innovation Summit last year, Peter chats with Red Hat CIO, Mike Kelly, about what it means to be an open source CIO today – and how even Red Hat is evolving in the open SaaS era. They cover everything from why open hybrid has become the dominant enterprise architecture to how CIOs should think about adopting new technologies to what it takes for an M&A to be successful, beyond the spreadsheets.

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