The platform: Bill Gates , Steve Jobs and Linus Trovalds

Written by h20 on 14 dec 2012.

Three names that shined over the years because of their contributions to technology in general

and to computers specifically, here's the timelines of each one of them.

Who had the most influence ? you be the judge.

“Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don’t evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, ‘how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?” – Bill Gates

Bill Gates enters Harvard	Bill entered Harvard with the intention of getting his pre-law majors, but quickly switched to technology and graduated with max level mathematics and science courses.
Gates calls MITS	Bill called MITS from his dorm room asking them if they would let him develop software for their computers.
"Microsoft"	Gates and Allen register the trademark "Microsoft". Gates writes a letter to computer hobbyists.
Leaving Harvard	Gates leaves Harvard and sets up Microsoft in Albuquerque N.M. where MITS is headquartered.
Money made from Microsoft in one year!	at the end of the year of 1978 Bill Gates's "Microsoft" had already made 1 million$. Gates Gains a huge reputation for being tough.
Microsoft relocates	Microsoft Headquarters relocates to Bellevue, Wash. near Gates's hometown.
Microsoft’s investments	Microsoft buys the rights to the operating system "DOS" form Seattle Computer Products. Microsoft modifies the "DOS" and renames it "MS-DOS".
Knighthood	Queen Elizabeth II bestows an honorary knighthood on Gates for his contributions to the United Kingdom. Time names him a “Person of the Year” along with Melinda Gates and Bono
Retirement	Gates retires from day-to-day duties at Microsoft on June 27 2008, but stays in the role of chairman and adviser on important development projects. He tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he plans to pour the same amount of energy into his foundation that he did into Microsoft. He stated in 2006 that his intentions, is to spend more time working with The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Picasso had a saying. He said 'Good artists copy, great artists steal.' And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas” – Steve Jobs

Buddhism	He quits his first job at Atari to backpack across India, take psychedelic drugs, convert to Buddhism, and shave his head . . . experiences that he credits with shaping his creative vision.
Apple	STEVE JOBS and STEVE WOZNIAK form Apple Computers and build their first personal computer . . . in Jobs’ parents’ garage.
Apple II	Apple releases the Apple Two, which becomes the first widely-used personal computer in the world.
Macintosh	Apple launches the Macintosh 1984, a desktop computer with the screen built in. One year later, Jobs would leave Apple.
Out of Apple	Jobs ousted from Apple and founds NeXT
Pixar	Jobs buys Pixar Animation Studios for $10 MILLION. In 1995 they release “Toy Story”, the first movie made entirely with computer animation. It changes animation forever. When Pixar goes public, Jobs becomes a billionaire.
Return to Apple	With Apple dying and about to be sold or killed off, Jobs returns, and becomes CEO. He takes a salary of $1.
iProducts	1998- iMac for 1,299$ 1999- iBook 2003- iTunes Music store and iPod 2007- iPhone 2007- Apple TV 2008- Macbook Air 2010- iPad 2011- iCloud

“Really, I’m not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect”

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code” – Linus Trovalds

Why linus?	Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the Nobel Prize-winning American chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character", noting that this makes him half "Nobel-prize-winning chemist" and half "blanket-carrying cartoon character"
In the army	His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the Finnish Army, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill the mandatory military service of Finland. In the army he holds the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of a ballistic calculation officer.
His own os	Linus Torvalds, a 21-year-old student at Helsinki University, decided to write his own computer operating system.
Why linux?	Initially, Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named Torvalds' directory linux.
Why the penguin?	The penguin was trovald’s personal mascot nicknamed Tux, which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel
Top innovator	In 1999 he was named by the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators, under the age of 35, in the world
More good news in 1999	In 1999 Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation. That same year both companies went public and Torvalds' share value temporarily shot up to roughly $20 million.
2006	approximately two percent of the Linux kernel was written by Torvalds himself
2012	his own personal contribution is mostly merging code written by others, with little programming. Torvalds remains the final authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel
Currently	Currently, the Linux Foundation sponsors Torvalds so he can work full time on improving Linux.