How Linus Torvalds Achieved a Net Worth of $150 Million
Red Hat and VA Linux went public, and since they acknowledged it would not have been possible without the programmer, Torvalds received shares reportedly worth $20 million. Before it went public, Red Hat had allegedly paid Torvalds $1 million in stock, which the programmer claims was the only big payout he received.
He revealed that the rest of the stock Transmeta and another Linux startup awarded him were not worth much by the time he could sell them. However, in the case of his Red Hat stock, it must have been worth his while because, in 2012, Red Hat became the first $1 billion open-source company when it reached the billion-dollar mark in annual revenue.
Whether he exercised his stock options is unclear, but the money he makes from the gains could be the reason why his net worth has continued to soar.
Well, that's one definition of being communist, I suppose. Myself, I think that it's fairly safe to say that Torvalds is okay with private ownership of industry.