Red Hat CEO: My Employees And I Cuss At Each Other

We love hearing stories about the management style of Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, especially when they come from Whitehurst himself.

He runs Red Hat, the biggest Linux and open source software company. As he describes it, Red Hat is a "meritocracy" where people earn respect based on their deeds, not their job title. That includes him, the CEO.

And he's good with that. Loves it, he says.

For instance, Whitehurst recently told us this great story about a phone call with one of his employees:

"I had an appointment that kept me from going into the office, so I was working from home. I got a call from Paul Cormier, who runs product and technology for me. I was having what I would say a 'discussion' with him. We disagreed on something and we kind of talked it out.

And I get off the phone and my wife is like 'Oh my god. What's wrong?'

I say, 'What do you mean?'

She says, 'You were having a huge fight with somebody.'

'No, I wasn't.'

'Yeah, you were. You were screaming and cussing and yelling …'

It made me think. So I called Paul back and I asked, 'Paul, did we just have a fight?'

He's like, 'No, what are you talking about?'

Many times, and not with everybody, more just with my direct reports, but we scream and yell at each other and it's just how we communicate."

He says this kind of brawling is perfectly healthy at Red Hat because people genuinely listen to each other, too.

It's not surprising that Red Hat meetings can be rough and tumble. The world of Linux is a particularly gloves-off environment. The guy that invented it, Linus Torvalds, is a notorious potty mouth. He's been known to dress-down people so badly on the public Linux mailing list, where much of Linux's business is conducted, that he's been accused of verbal abuse.

We've met Torvalds. He a great guy, often charming, always witty. He's just passionate about Linux and doesn't put up with ideas, code, or people that fall short of his high expectations.

In July, Intel programmer Sarah Sharp exchanged words with Torvalds about it. She wanted him to knock it off and create a more courteous, professional environment.

Torvalds was having none of it. His reply was so salty, we couldn't print it all.

But, Whitehurst says, Red Hat has been trying not to just create a culture of disrespect. Cussing is ok with some people because "different functions within the company attract different types of people."

For instance, the engineering team is perfectly comfortable with saying "that's the dumbest f---ing idea I've ever heard. I can't believe you're such a moron." At Red Hat, that's "a constructive, productive dialog," Whitehurst told us.

But "if someone from engineering calls up our human resources department and calls them 'the biggest moron ever' that's offensive and counter productive," he explains.

His management team is trying to make sure all employees know those rules.

Still seems like the moral of the story is: You want to be a big wig in the Linux world? Toughen your skin and brush up on your curse words.