Linus Makes Business Week's Best Managers List

andhar writes "Linus Torvalds has made Business Week Magazine's 2004 list of Best Managers, where he finds himself in the company of luminaries such as Hector Ruiz (AMD), John Henry (Boston Red Sox) and Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks SKG). The article lauds the influence of Linux on the server market and drops the names of such heavyweights as IBM, Dell, HP and Intel as Linux supporters. Linus is quoted, calling all you kernel coders a herd of cats."

Comments

It's a nice piece...

[_PimpDaddy7_]

This is a great article. I read it most of it last night. Goes through good managers, WHY they are good, how they turned around the company(Xerox as an example) and talks about bad managers and WHY they are bad, mistakes they've made, etc.

This article should be read over and over again by the countries PHB. But I know they won't listen.

Check out the pic of Linus, I think he's in a CORNfield or something LOL

Re:It's a nice piece...

[iabervon]

What's really remarkable about Linus's place in the list is that he doesn't actually have any employees. He doesn't control any finances. He doesn't even influence the people who control the pay of the people he manages. He's such a good manager that people accept his management for no reason other than that it is good. It's quite remarkable that he can actually do this, and also that a business magazine recognizes that this is going on.

A bet Linus could have a great time going to classes in an MBA program and heckling the instructors.

Steve Jobs?

[Sophrosyne]

I can't believe Steve Jobs didn't win best manager of the year--
...they must be holding out for best manager of the century.

from my vantage point,

[bogaboga]

...I know that Linus has never actively enrolled in any management school, but he's a good manager. The first president of USA also never had any formal education as such but did wonderful things.

Many people that have not gone to school have done good things...but if one sought a job sighting management skills, they are quickly turned down for lack of the so called degrees!

This is despite the clear evidence that the so called educated managers have done more havoc than good. Just look at the companies that have folded up!

I think that this issue of "Must have an MBA, LLB etc, etc.." was created purely for financial purposes by educational institutions. All people doing crap at their jobs here are very educauted. One wonders what their education helps anyway.

Disclaimer: I run a fairly successful finacial business on the internet, but have zero training in this. I use my common sense.

Note that Richard Branson (of the Virgin Group), does not have the educational papers that one would think he has. But he is very successful to the extent that he keeps British Airways managers on their toes.

Re:from my vantage point,

[Analogy Man]

I read a very interesting book about Enron this last year. Actually those folks were brilliant and did very complex accounting to get away with effectively laundering billions. Trouble is if you perpetuate a lie by telling bigger and bigger lies it will eventually all come crashing down.

I think the most important elements to being professionally successful...the right way are:

Problem solving skills (surprising how rare these are really)

An ethical compass (different from a religious conviction although in many it is related)

Communication skills

And above all, an ability to remember the GOAL

The last is critical. So often the easy trap is to loose sight of the ultimate goal. In the engineering world the pitfalls are common.

Focusing on the perfect structural analysis rather than answering a question required to make a design decision.

Coming up with a wonderful fully parametric CAD model for a crappy product.

Designing a software package to do everything under the sun and delivering it 2 years after the most critical 20% of it were needed for the companies new product line.

Fallen Managers

[ghost509]

Fallen Managers include:

Frank Dunn Nortel
Graig Conway Peoplesoft
Sanjay Kumar Computer Associates International

I'm not sure why the CEO of SCO is not in that list, since SCO's earnings on most products are diminishing.

#include "a_life.h"

What has Jobs done?

[Anonymous Coward]

What has Jobs done besides smoke and mirrors? Apple's computers have not set any trends other than the look of the box (color and shape) since the Apple ][ days. His decisions have made sure that Macintoshes only appeal to a small minority of computer users.

The iPod is flying high right now, but what will it be like in 1 year with larger capacity, easier-to-use music players for less than half the cost out there? Machines not hogtied to the obscure non-standard AAC format?

Geeks are now for managment!

[Garabito]

Linus: 2004 Business Week list of best managers.

RMS: "involuntarily self-promoted into management"(!!!)

Alan Cox: Left Linux kernel development to get a MBA

Re:Impressive.

[TRS80NT]

Yes, but they're all in India.

How is that not hiring or firing?

[SuperKendall]

He's not anyones boss, he can't "fire" a kernel hacker, or direct them, he can just decide to accept or not accept patches.

And how is that power not explicitly hiring or firing? Basically, choosing to accept patches from someone for a while is the same as hiring - just as shutting someone out of the process is exactly like a firing.

Indeed this is hiring/firing at its most pure, for just as the person derives no financial loss from a "firing", so too does Linus have nothing to GAIN by a firing beyond the quality of the product - no bottom line to trim, just quality to oversee. That makes firing (or not firing) far more meaningful than one that is intertwined on both sides with financial implications, and potential lawsuits.

As for direction, the true indicator of being a good manager is that many people are willing to trust whatever vision he has in this regard.