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Linus Torvalds

Finnish software engineer (born 1969)

  • Audience308.6K
  • Fame84.8
  • Momentum10.0
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Source-basedFalling
306.2K github followers
  • Audience308.6K
  • Fame84.8
  • Momentum10.0
  • Global rank#243
  • United States rank#72
  • Developers rank#2
Born 1969 · age 57United States
United States flagUnited StatesFI flagDevelopersDeveloper

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  • Biggest on GitHub
    306.2K
    @torvalds
  • Wikipedia
    122 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Global rank
    #243
    Fame.am leaderboard
  • Age
    57
    Born 1969
  • Known for
    Revolution OS
    2001
Summary
Updated 2026-08-13

He wrote the kernel that runs most of the internet, every Android phone, and the supercomputers mapping the cosmos — then gave it away for free.

Biography

About

Born in Finland on 28 December 1969, Torvalds started building the Linux kernel in 1991 as a student project, releasing it under an open license that let anyone use or modify it. That decision seeded an operating system now embedded in billions of devices. Later he built Git, the version control system that coordinates code across nearly every major software project on earth. In 2012 he received the Millennium Technology Prize for creating "a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel." The IEEE gave him the Computer Pioneer Award in 2014 and the Mas…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds
said
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*
— 1995–99
Linus Torvalds
said
If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program.
— 1995–99
Linus Torvalds
said
You know you're brilliant, but maybe you'd like to understand what you did 2 weeks from now.
— 1995–99
Linus Torvalds
said
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
— This was the launch of Linux.
Linus Torvalds
said
Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?
— 1991–94
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Latest

On YouTube

Deep cuts

GitHub

Verified
GitHub
@torvalds
Followers
220K
Public repos
8
Total stars
188K
Contributions
—
Deep cuts

Repositories

Verified
RepositoryLanguageStars
linux
C★175K
subsurface
C++★3K
By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Falling
84.8
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum10.0
Historical28.9
Now attention23.3
Source confidence85.0
Completeness90.0
Global rank
#243
Country rank
#72
Category rank
#2
Receipts

Sources