Marc Ewing is a retired American software engineer who has a net worth of $300 million. Marc Ewing is best known as the creator and originator of the Red Hat software brand which creates open source enterprise software, most notably the Red Hat range of Linux operating system distributions.
Early Life And College: Marc Ewing was born on May 9, 1969. While attending Carnegie Mellon University, where he graduated in 1992, he became known for wearing a red hat around campus as he walked to classes. The hat was a red Cornell University lacrosse hat given to him by his grandfather. Thanks to his reputation for being great with computers, fellow students would seek out “the man with the red hat” when they needed tech help.
Red Hat: After graduating from college, Marc began developing what would later become Red Hat Linux, an open-source Linux distribution. The beta was released in May 1995. That same year, Marc sold his software to an entrepreneur named Bob Young. The two ultimately decided to merge Bob’s Linux software catalog business and Red Hat Linux into a newly-named Red Hat Software. Bob Young served as CEO. Marc Ewing served as Chief Technology Officer.
Red Hat’s business model, which was revolutionary at the time, was to make open-source software for free or very low cost, then charge a fee for further development, quality assurance and customer support.
Within a decade, it would be the first open source technology company to surpass $1 billion in annual revenue.
IPO: On August 11, 1999, Red Hat went public. It was the height of the dotcom bubble and it ended up being the eighth-largest first day gain in Wall Street history at that time. Red Hat was supposed to price at $10. It soared to $50 intra-day, a 200% gain.
Marc stepped down from Red Hat in 1999.
Stock Swings: At his peak, Marc Ewing owned 9 million shares of Red Hat. For a brief period before the dotcom bubble burst when Red Hat touched $100 per share, his 9 million shares were worth $900 million.
After the bubble burst in 2001, the stock dropped as low as $3 a share. So Marc’s 9 million shares went from being worth $900 million to $27 million.
The price per share eventually recovered, hovering in the $25 range for much of the period between 2004 and 2010.
Red Hat’s stock exploded to $150+ in 2018 after IBM indicated interest in acquiring the company.
IBM Acquisition: In July 2019 Red Hat was acquired by IBM for $34 billion.
| Net Worth: | $300 Million |
| Date of Birth: | May 9, 1969 (52 years old) |
| Gender: | Male |