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Linus Makes Business Week's Best Managers List

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the meow-meow-meow dept.

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."

6 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. It's a nice piece... by _PimpDaddy7_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:It's a nice piece... by iabervon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  2. Steve Jobs? by Sophrosyne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. from my vantage point, by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...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.

  4. Fallen Managers by ghost509 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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"
  5. Re:Impressive. by TRS80NT · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes, but they're all in India.

    --
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.