Hacker News Reader

I'd guess that the guys like Guido, Linus, etc get jobs that a) pay pretty well, and b) Let them do pretty much what they would be doing anyway..

View on HN

3 years old reference, but gives a ballpark idea of the arrangement for Linus:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_05/b3918001_...

"For his part, Torvalds has been amply rewarded for his role, but he's no Bill Gates billionaire. OSDL pays him a salary of nearly $200,000. In addition, he sold initial public offering shares that he got as gifts from a couple of Linux companies, including VA Linux Systems. That helped him afford his house and put money away for his daughters' educations."

According to Wikipedia, the VA Linux and RedHat stock options were worth around $20M. That's an awfully nice house. ;-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com