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VA Linux is one of those prime examples of stock market mania. Close behind in terms of scale and similar in terms of philosophy/narrative (of the good small man sticking it to the evil big machine) to what we saw recently with GameStop. It is even a featured example in recent editions of The Intelligent Investor.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

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As an outsider, it definitely wasn't obvious at the time. Red Hat is still around.

If you look at their wikipedia article and see the photo of the rack mount servers they sold[1], that doesn't seem that ludicrous even today.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#/media/File%3AServer...

The "mania" is in the public perception & pricing of securities. Many "mania" companies were legitimate, or at least had legitimate parts in it (look at the example of GameStop, there's nothing wrong with the company, but it was hilariously overpriced).

Ironically the successor entities to VA Linux eventually became part of Gamestop.

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