Guy Kawasaki has a good interview with Mickos here.
My favorite:
Question: Have you had any kind of concerns that MySQL will be run like a “big company”?
Answer: I had those concerns even when we were a small startup!
Complacency and arrogance can creep in without your noticing in any
sort of organisation. To avoid it, we have taken some specific steps.
We have released our software under the GPL thus exposing ourselves to
the risk of forking. This keeps us running fast. We have also chosen to
serve the fastest paced and fastest growing business in the world such
as YouTube, Flickr, Zillow, and Nokia.
This also forces us to run fast. And we have a company culture of
no-nonsense and of following The No Asshole Rule by Bob Sutton–pardon
my French, but the book by that name is so good. For these reasons,
there is no time for complacency. These aspects apply to Sun as well.
And if for whatever unlikely reason we would ever encounter some big
company behavior within Sun, we will do our utmost to help change it.
