Robert Young, founder of Red Hat. He made a bundle off Linux. Now he wants to bring an open source ethos to ideas and events.
Lulu of an idea: Young�s new venture, Lulu Press, is a peer-to-peer publishing experiment aimed at academia. Professors can publish on Lulu and collaborate without worrying about patents or losing ownership of their work. As the classics of literature fall into the public domain, Lulu prints them on demand for a fraction of retail � on paper, CD, or ebook.
Bye-bye booth bunnies: Young�s second high-wired act is the Lulu Tech Circus, which is engineered to give the trade show back to the geeks. Attendees participate in seminars on robotics, supercomputing, and digital film. The first circus went up in Raleigh in September. Next year it hits Boston, Chicago, Washington, and Toronto.
Model business: A veteran of three startups, Young says the one constant is that revenue comes from where you least expect it. "I have yet to be in a startup that was successful doing what it set out to do," he says. "An executive too focused on the original business plan generally misses the bigger opportunity."
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signal : noise
A Smarter Way to Sell Ketchup
Better Prostitution Through Technology
Fight the Power
The Open Source Ringmaster
The Nuclear Office
The First Shot in a Biowar
Our Six-Legged Air Force
Eyes in the Back of Your Mouth
Centers of Gravity
jargon watch
Cabernet or Crap?
But Wouldn�t It Be Better With a Motor?
C�mon, Get Happy!
The Eagle Has Floundered
Play the HP Way
Markets Behaving Badly
Wired | Tired | Expired
Do You Believe?
