This interview by TFiR:( Open Source and Emerging Tech) with Linode Founder Christopher Aker is a good watch. (37 minutes; from June of last year.)
Aker tells how he started and bootstrapped Linode. and what his operating philosophy is. A good description is to democratize technology by offering inexpensive virtualized services for the independent developer. Linode has continued to bypass all outside equity funding.
He describes the reasons for moving the business from a small Jersey shore town to Philadelphia (people needed a sense of community), and how he found the 162 year-old bank building that became Linode’s headquarters.
Aker says Linode has added about 100 employees in the last 18 to 20 months. Linode now has close to 200 employees according to the company’s Linkedin page. He says the management structure has become more complex (no longer flat) with the additional headcount, and that has been an adjustment process.
Two things Linode has been implementing are Kubernetes and GPU Instances. In the future, Aker is working on database as a service, bare metal machines, and envisioning a future software-defined network architecture.