2 episodes
SHIFT HAPPENED: OpenShift 10 Years Later Issac J Roth & John Poelstra
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- Business
Ten years ago, OpenShift launched to the world.
Redhat had recently acquired my 12-person startup, Makara, and then handed the keys to me to run the project.
“Go break glass and don’t let anyone get in your way,” was the direction we were given.
Many twists and turns happened throughout the journey. This podcast series includes conversations with OpenShift’s founding team reminiscing about the early days and drawing on lessons for today’s founders.
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Innovator’s dilemma
Issac Roth, John Poelstra, and Scott Crenshaw discuss how OpenShift managed to take Red Hat from acute anxiety to developer groundswell and dominance in the coming cloud.
Topics discussed:
The business environment that allowed for Red Hat to consider acquiring OpenShift. (“Red Had suffered from acute anxiety about being disintermediated and losing its business model.”) All the things had to go right for OpenShift to become a success. (“The path looks linear in retrospect, but it never is in practice.”) Launching containerized apps. (“No one wanted to use the word ‘containers.’”) Pushing innovation and experimentation inside a bigger company. Building a go-to-market machine. Embracing a competitor (Docker). Creating a developer groundswell through inclusion. The vegetable oil-spewing Franken-car. -
‘Break glass and don’t let anyone get in your way’
Issac Roth and John Poelstra are joined by Mike McGrath to discuss the early days of OpenShift and how it convinced Red Hat to take a chance to solve its ‘coolness crisis.’
Topics discussed:
The technical environment that allowed for Red Hat to consider acquiring OpenShift. Heroku and first-mover advantage. OpenShift’s scatter-shot approach to launching products and the “summit curse.” The early days of product evangelism and community building. Real marketing for tech products. RedHat’s coolness crisis. How Red Hat supported the growth of OpenShift.