14 DAY TRIAL // Linus Torvalds could have been on Apple’s payroll, had the Linux founder agreed to drop his personal developments to do “non-Linux things” for the late visionary genius, Steve Jobs.
Wired reports that although Torvalds hasn't met Bill Gates to this day, the Linux founder did bump into Steve Jobs around the year 2000, when he was still working at Transmeta.
As the story goes, Jobs invited Torvalds to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters with the purpose of luring him into the Apple cult. However, the Apple CEO failed, Torvalds conveyed to the interviewers:
“Unix for the biggest user base: that was the pitch,” says Torvalds. The condition: He’d have to drop Linux development. “He wanted me to work at Apple doing non-Linux things,” he said. That was a non-starter for Torvalds. Besides, he hated Mac OS’s Mach kernel.
“I said no,” Torvalds remembers.