18 years is a long time to run a business, I believe Linode hasn’t had much outside investment. I suspect the founding team are looking to exit and will slowly pull back over the next couple of years.

Definitely not an acquihire. Linode build a super solid business without taking any venture.

$900M is pretty steep to acquire about 200 employees, of whom only a small fraction are technical.

Nah, this is about acquiring a business for 9x revenue...