Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of WRAL TechWire, which launched as Local TechWire in 2002. Smith first wrote about Red Hat shortly after the company opened a headquarters in Research Triangle Park nearly 30 years ago.

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RALEIGH – As sobering as the email from CEO Matt Hicks that told employees Red Hat is cutting hundreds of jobs, that isn’t the only change is coming to the Hatters – long known for free spirits, work from home and an untraditional way of doing business which is the foundation of the open source software community. In fact a remaking of the company – launched in 1993 – appears to be underway.

Some might fear that the 30-year-old culture that former CEOs Jim Whitehurst and Paul Cormier had vowed to protect – an environment they had inherited from founder Bob Young and his successor Matthew Szulik, who once called Microsoft  – is going to be remade. More like that of parent IBM, the standard bearer for traditional business management?

These are telling hints from Hicks:

Matt Hicks. (Red Hat photo)

“We must continue to sharpen our focus and do fewer things better,” Hicks wrote in the email, a copy of which was shared with WRAL. News.

“Our ways of operating must evolve – there will be a required change in the work we all do.”

Rick Smith is editor and cofounder of WRAL TechWire

That’s tough talk for Hatters who as a company have delivered results – enough to set up Red Hat for one of the biggest corporate takeovers in History.

Remember shortly after the deal when some people speculated that Red Hatters might help turn IBM less blue by the merging of cultures?

How quaint.

Here’s a scary thought: What if IBM says dump the traditional Red Hat fedoras (see company logo) and let’s go, blue!

In his own words: Red Hat CEO explains why layoffs, other changes being made

Culture wars: A victor?

Unlike in the last season of “Picard,” [spoiler alerts] the Borg have triumphed.

Hicks has seen much of Red Hat’s history first hand and stepped into Cormier’s shoes who had been a strong defender as IBM’s tentacles quickly reached into management after the $34 billion deal closed in 2019.

A 17-year Red Hat veteran who was promoted to CEO last July by owner IBM, Hicks didn’t say anything in the email about declining revenue. However, IBM in its earnings last week noted an 8% growth in sales – the lowest increase since Big Blue bought the Raleigh-based software and services firm for $34 billion.

Red Hat cutting hundreds of jobs, CEO says in letter to employees

‘Manage more directly’

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has been talking about tightening belts for months. Hatters had heard this. “[T]his was a decision our leadership team was truly hoping we could avoid,” Hicks said.

But with layoffs of some 4% of Hatters – no cuts are being made in sales and “building software, Hicks pointed out – comes the perils of reorganization and more demands.

“We must be willing to engage and learn the interesections between our teams and to manage them more directly with fewer layers of interface” while “simplifying our structure.

Note the “manage more directly.” Free spirits, beware.

“This structural change needs to be accompanied by a cultural change as well: We must choose to work and prioritize differently, or we simply recreate the challenges that got us here.”

“Cultural change” … wow, that’s tough. What does that mean other than tougher, more regimented, leaner and meaner?

You are with us or you against us, Hicks seemed to imply.

“This is not work we can delegate to others,” he declared.

In other words, the Hatters that stay could see parts of their world turned inside out and upside down. Remember the “march” played by the British following the surrender at Yorktown?

“The World Turned Upside Down”