Red Hat brightens amid success of Linux

In 1998, shortly after moving his family to North Carolina, Matthew Szulik took a call from an old friend and business associate, Bill Kaiser, general
manager of Greylock Ventures in Waltham, Mass.

Greylock had just become the first venture capital firm to invest in a free-software company, Linux distributor Red Hat Inc. in Raleigh, N.C. Now
Kaiser was looking for someone to turn it into a profitable business.

“I picked up the phone,” Kaiser recalled, “and said, `Matthew, here’s an opportunity to change the world. Are you interested?’ ”