Linus Torvalds was paid $1.6M in 2018

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460503801/201943179349303054/full

by ent101 • 5 years ago

39 24 5 years ago

projects.propublica.org

gigatexal• 5 years ago

Honestly that’s low compared to how important he is to the Kernel.

ent1013• 5 years ago

I agree. But tbh when I first searched for the data I was worried the amount would be even less than this...

ceva• 5 years ago

He should be the only true billionaire, known for making such a positive impact to the world and community..

nabla9• 5 years ago

Linus is not getting stock options from the Linux Foundation, so the cash pay must compensate for that.

Senior VP's at Google earned little over $600,000, but their total compensation was over $50 million in 2020. Linus is giving up extra zero to work for the foundation.

(Microsoft paid $7.5 billion for Github. That business was born from a side project he quickly whipped up.)

bawolff• 5 years ago

Hard for me to get worked up over this. How much were people like steve jobs or bill gates paid?

If anything he deserves more.

Amfy• 5 years ago

If anything he deserves more.

ent1013• 5 years ago

I agree. I was hoping for a much larger amount and yet expected a much lower amount.

peakaboo• 5 years ago

Exactly. I'm happy to see comments like yours. He gave Linux to the world for free and made sure it couldn't be turned into a corporate product. The guy is as close to a hero as we get in tech.

ryandvm• 5 years ago

Not just Linux, but Git too. So not only do most of the computers in the world run Linux, there's an entire ecosystem of the Internet based off of one of his side projects. Talk about proving that you're not a one-hit wonder...

rambojazz• 5 years ago

You speak like he wrote the Kernel (and Git) all by himself.

MrMember• 5 years ago

I read the title and thought, "That's it?"

carlsborg• 5 years ago

He could incorporate and become a deca-billionaire overnight.

majewsky• 5 years ago

He is incorporated, but as a foundation, not as a company.

Semaphor• 5 years ago

This brought back a thought I recently had: Is there any kind of public succession plan for when Linus eventually dies?

Y_Y• 5 years ago

Use something like FleshGolem to install a recent release of Vüdü with at least a 5.1 kernel.

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/installing-l...

harel• 5 years ago

Good for him. Hope his takeaway increases. He earned it.

ent1013• 5 years ago

Why was this flagged?!

rvz• 5 years ago

HN is just beyond me sometimes. No reasons for flagging this whatsoever.

Why not ask dang?

jsiepkes• 5 years ago

Probably because the headline is misleading. He doesn't get paid 1.6M (which he would be very well entitled to if you ask me).

For example if you you look at the report you can see that 900K of the total 1.6M is listed as "Retirement and other deferred compensation". I don't know what that means but "deferred compensation" seems to me like something else then getting paid. Paid means "money in hand" in my books. Everything else is compensation.

orev• 5 years ago

No, “deferred compensation” is very much money that has been paid to you, but you don’t immediately have access to it because it is stored in an account with some kind of restriction, like a 401k or IRA. This is done to avoid having to pay a huge amount of taxes in one year, so the payments can be spread out over multiple years. There is almost always an option to invest the money so you don’t miss out on gains while you’re waiting for each payout.

phtrivier• 5 years ago

Does anyone have any idea about what exactly constitutes the "Other" column ? I don't know how to read the table for a foundation, so it's not clear if it's just "bonuses", taken from the general budget, or if it might be something else (say, "speaker fees" or "consulting" gigs that are done in his name, but channel through the foundation, etc... No idea what I'm taking about, here, so just curious !)

Antoninus• 5 years ago

Underpaid TBH.

dtech• 5 years ago

So that's a little bit more or roughly comparable to the highest paid engineering positions in FAANG. He deserves 10x more at least.

Linus Torvalds was paid $1.6M in 2018

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