Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich.
The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life, and Dave Cutler, Microsoft technical fellow and Windows NT lead developer, was also there to witness the moment and meet Torvalds for the first time. “No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
[Image: Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds meet for the first time. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/1750435121315.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds have apparently never met in person before, despite their pseudo-rivalry.
Hitler experimented on hundreds of thousands of Jews and the medical world benefited from it greatly.
does that mean you’re going to nuance the Nazi regime because they “did some good”?
no amount of good is worth the ounce of evil used to make it.
edit: if the ends justify the means, where do you draw the line? how many lives must suffer in order for the goal to be achieved? 1 life? 10? 1 million?
and to those of you claiming Godwin’s law, I used it as an example. I don’t think Bill Gates is Hitler, I never even said anything like that. we could easily use the Tuskegee Airmen and the US Department of Health. How many of those families had to suffer to make the ends justified in your opinion.
IMO none. there is no amount of loss of life that is acceptance for any means. life is precious and unique and deserves to be protected.
edit 2: I didn’t realize humanity sold out their morals and ethics for the “greater good”. my mistake thinking we were better than that. sorry.
Lol no. Of all the sleazy and greasy millionaires, Gates is one of the few whose actions speaks for themselves. Dude has been doing noble causes for most of my life.
I’m all for talking shit about the rich, but it better be true.
It’s more nuanced though. Here’s how rich people use charities to gain wealth:
Rich person has tons of money that would be taxed if bill Y passes. Rich person creates a charity and donated 20% of what they would had to pay to the IRS to the charity, with that money the charity uses half for good causes and half is given to X lobby company, which then lobbies politicians to avoid passing that bill.
In the end, the rich person saved 80% of what they would had to pay.
Yeah, 10% went to good causes but imagine what the society could afford if 100% went through instead of 0.
This is a very rough outline of how they do it, but the summary is that they use charities to donate to lobbies while skipping taxes on the donation itself.
The point here is that in many jurisdictions doing charity exempts you from certain taxes, and it is possible to shuffle money around under the disguise of philanthropy while still getting all the financial benefits like an actual charity
Because they are tax avoidance mechanism first and charity seconds.
Money is a brokering system of power, charitues being tax free makes these entities unaccountable to democratic institurions.
That’s how we ended up with this infection of corrupt megachurches.
The “prosperity gospel” is billionaire-serving propaganda. It empowers their formation, growth and necessary abuses that come from such widespread exploitation.
without checking, Gates’ wealth is probably tied up in a lot of MS stock, and he could probably walk into the office and ask the intern to get him a coffee. but yeah i think mostly retired.
Linus is still active is maintaining the Linux kernel.
True, if anything he has less of a chance of getting a coffee at the MS office because the coffee machines will be out of order… “Kindly I’m Sorry sirs its on windows”
Maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t Gates retired? And I have no idea if Torvalds is still active.
But historical photo aside, isn’t this meeting a bunch of nothing?
Torvalds is still very active on the Linux kernel. As far as I know, he’s in charge of it and makes major decisions about its direction.
Bill Gates retired from Microsoft in 2008.
Gates is still very active in his charity organization
“charity”
Making money/influence. It’s such a scam his “Bill and Melinda Charity” (no taxes on charities).
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Name one bad historical person that didn’t do at least some good.
Your moral compass is broken.
The charity did more than some good though.
Also, name one good historical person that didn’t do at least some bad.
It is almost like things aren’t black and white but more like Yin and Yang.
That’s not how it works, it’s not like “I do some good, now I can do some bad”. It does not even out.
Bad people doesn’t become good because “some good things came out of it”.
If you do bad, then you are bad.
spoiler
sdfsafsafsdaf
Their pr firm seems to function very well at least.
Guess you’re going to whitewash bezos, musk and zuckerberg next?
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It capitalized Wash because spell checker is the leaf on the wind.
Every dictator did “some good work”, are you thinking they are good people?
IMO your moral compass need maintenance.
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the ends don’t justify the means.
Hitler experimented on hundreds of thousands of Jews and the medical world benefited from it greatly.
does that mean you’re going to nuance the Nazi regime because they “did some good”?
no amount of good is worth the ounce of evil used to make it.
edit: if the ends justify the means, where do you draw the line? how many lives must suffer in order for the goal to be achieved? 1 life? 10? 1 million?
and to those of you claiming Godwin’s law, I used it as an example. I don’t think Bill Gates is Hitler, I never even said anything like that. we could easily use the Tuskegee Airmen and the US Department of Health. How many of those families had to suffer to make the ends justified in your opinion.
IMO none. there is no amount of loss of life that is acceptance for any means. life is precious and unique and deserves to be protected.
edit 2: I didn’t realize humanity sold out their morals and ethics for the “greater good”. my mistake thinking we were better than that. sorry.
I hate billionaires as much as the next gal, but I think comparing Bill Gates to Hitler is a bit extreme
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Lol no. Of all the sleazy and greasy millionaires, Gates is one of the few whose actions speaks for themselves. Dude has been doing noble causes for most of my life.
I’m all for talking shit about the rich, but it better be true.
What type of taxes are you talking about?
It’s still giving money away though? Why would you want there to be taxes on charity?
It’s more nuanced though. Here’s how rich people use charities to gain wealth:
Rich person has tons of money that would be taxed if bill Y passes. Rich person creates a charity and donated 20% of what they would had to pay to the IRS to the charity, with that money the charity uses half for good causes and half is given to X lobby company, which then lobbies politicians to avoid passing that bill.
In the end, the rich person saved 80% of what they would had to pay.
Yeah, 10% went to good causes but imagine what the society could afford if 100% went through instead of 0.
This is a very rough outline of how they do it, but the summary is that they use charities to donate to lobbies while skipping taxes on the donation itself.
It’s the US, so more weapons I presume.
That’s the sentiment that allows these rich fucks to avoid paying taxes without big backlash. First focus on collecting, then on spending…
The point here is that in many jurisdictions doing charity exempts you from certain taxes, and it is possible to shuffle money around under the disguise of philanthropy while still getting all the financial benefits like an actual charity
Because they are tax avoidance mechanism first and charity seconds.
Money is a brokering system of power, charitues being tax free makes these entities unaccountable to democratic institurions.
That’s how we ended up with this infection of corrupt megachurches.
The “prosperity gospel” is billionaire-serving propaganda. It empowers their formation, growth and necessary abuses that come from such widespread exploitation.
Search the web for “polio”
Linus still approves the changes in the kernel. His main baby for the past 15 years or so has been GIT.
I think he maintained git at its inception for like 6 months and then passed it off to someone else, but I could be completely mistaken.
That means there are highschool seniors who weren’t even alive while Bill Gates was at Microsoft. Interns might not even know who he is.
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS 👏🎸
I’m sure if they work there they know who he is though lol but possibly I suppose
without checking, Gates’ wealth is probably tied up in a lot of MS stock, and he could probably walk into the office and ask the intern to get him a coffee. but yeah i think mostly retired.
Linus is still active is maintaining the Linux kernel.
and yes, this is fluff, not some kind of summit
Gates could probably walk into most offices and get a free coffee and an impromptu meeting with the CEO if he wants to.
True, if anything he has less of a chance of getting a coffee at the MS office because the coffee machines will be out of order… “Kindly I’m Sorry sirs its on windows”
Still cool though. Also I think Bill has more money.
Than the intern? I mean…yeah. probably.