A historic photo of Windows creator Bill Gates and Linux creator Linus Torvalds meeting for the first time
Mark Rusinovich, who set up the dinner, reported with photos that Bill Gates, the creator of Windows, and Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, had the opportunity to meet for the first time.
I had the thrill of a lifetime, hosting dinner for Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds and David Cutler.
A Historic Photo: Torvalds and Gates Together
https://linuxiac.com/a-historic-photo-torvalds-and-gates-together/
Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds meet for the first time. | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/690815/bill-gates-linus-torvalds-meeting-photo
Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft and the creator of Windows. Linus Torvalds is the creator of the Linux kernel. Both are well-known names in the IT world, but they had never met before.
Mark Russinovich, CTO and technical fellow at Microsoft Azure, posted the following photo on the business social networking site LinkedIn on Saturday, June 21, 2025. Standing next to each other are Russinovich, Gates, Torvalds, and David Cutler, the legendary programmer who created Windows NT.
'I had the thrill of a lifetime organizing a dinner for Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, and David Cutler, all of whom I had never met before. There were no major kernel decisions made, but maybe at the next dinner,' Russinovich said.
Speaking of rivals in the IT world, Gates and Apple's Steve Jobs are famous. Although the two were fierce competitors, they also appeared at events together and spoke.
Incidentally, Jobs approached Torvalds about working for Apple around 2000. At that time, Jobs offered Torvalds a fairly high salary, but he also asked him to stop being involved in the Linux project. Torvalds turned down Jobs' offer because he wanted to work on an open source project that the community could access without license restrictions.
What if Linus Torvalds Would Have Accepted Steve Jobs Offer?
in Note, Posted by logc_nt