Perhaps many wonder, out of curiosity, how much does Linus Torvalds earn. The father of the Linux kernel should have a great salary, since he is the creator of the kernel that moves the world, yes, that moves the world. From some satellites, rovers, and ships, to power plants, through supercomputers, to millions of mobile devices, vehicles, appliances, consumer electronics, robots, industrial equipment, etc.
In a recent study of what some tech industry leaders earned in 2018, some really impressive numbers have been shown. These figures speak of pure earnings, that is, combining compensation and benefits. And, believe it or not, Linus Torvalds is of those who earn the least… (Although his salary is not bad at all).
Compensation
As for the compensationsIf you talk about millions of dollars received in 2018, Elon Musk is the one who gets the least, however, this would be without taking into account the compensation in shares, only the direct ones.
Linus Torvalds would surpass Jeff Bezos (Amazon) in direct compensation, with less than 2 million, but very little, and far behind Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) who would be around 23, or Satya Nadella (Microsoft) with about 26.
Actions
Regarding compensation with stock options or shares, the truth is that Linus Torvalds is light years away from other fortunes. The best unemployed Elon Musk with those 2300 billion mentioned above. It is followed by Sundar Pichai (Google) with 276 million, and then Tim Cook (Apple) would come with 136.
Off the podium would be Satya Nadella, which perceives them more as direct compensations. In shares "only" he receives a few million. More or less the same as Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). Linus Torvalds and Jeff Bezos barely perceive. However, both Mark and Jeff are among the richest in the world, a select club that Linus does not enter.
Fortunes
If they are taken into account the fortunes of these technology greats, the ranking of these CEOs would finally be like this (according to the Forbes 2021 list):
- Jeff Bezos: Amazon's has $ 177.000 billion.
- Elon Musk: With Tesla, SpaceX, etc., you have amassed $ 151.000 billion.
- Bill Gates: The ex of Microsoft adds 124.000 million dollars.
- Mark Zuckerberg: that of social networks has 97.000 million dollars.
- Larry Ellison: Oracle founder reaches 93.000 million dollars.
- Larry Page: Google's reaches 91.500 billion dollars.
- Sergei Brin: thanks to Google it has raised 89.000 million dollars.
- Tim Cook: Apple is left with a discreet 1300 billion dollars.
Neither Pichai nor Nadella nor Linus Torvalds are on this list. Stratospheric figures that have nothing to do with the salary that Linus receives from The Linux Foundation and as the head of Linux development. Although he is not a CEO as such, he has a key paid role, and it is estimated that both in compensation and benefits he would be collecting 1.6 million dollars annually. An almost ridiculous figure if you take into account the impact your project has had on the world ...
Those tech CEO fortunes are paltry compared to the fortunes of the Rothschild and Rockefeller fortunes, but for "some reason" they don't appear in the Forbes rankings, why is that?
It seems to me of very little importance how much Linus Torval earns, it seems more important to me to know and recognize that there is no other person around the world who has shown his generosity. Likewise, we are all going to die ... but at this moment, the one who is owed and owed the most is this man. That it can have the same trait that can be granted to Tesla. Who always wanted electricity HIS INVENTION, free for all and could not be realized by the immense and inexhaustible greed of the rich of the USA. He struck a balance and gave a gift to the world.