The life of Linus opens as he likes to lead it: quietly. I found most striking the description of his childhood, and the sheer difference between it and the upbringings portrayed in many of the other readings we have completed throughout the semester. So many characters have come and gone, with their respective set of peculiarities – which Linus himself certainly does not lack – but to me the most strange thing about Linus is what he is not. He views his work not as a world-changing quest, or even as a great philosophical undertaking. Though both of these qualities are present in the result of his efforts, he is humble in his ideological ambitions. He does not see himself as the smartest person in the room. Even when he is, he finds this fact passively, as something that happened to be the case. In one of the interviews he mentions in passing being the best man suited for his technology, as if this were a sporadic matter of fact and, to some degree, even somewhat annoying. When he speaks of himself, he rarely highlights the positive, and when he does he is bothered by it.
This manner of viewing himself is one that I find deeply interesting, somewhat respect, and believe to have been key to enable his work to have the frame that it does. It does not seem to me, in my brief superficial knowledge, that it is born out of some lack of self worth or an inferiority complex. It is a self-imposed humility that may be absent from some of his more aggressive writing, but one that he carries with him in his heart in the day-to-day. This gives an atmosphere of honesty to his words that some of the much more scripted, camera-trained showmen that litter the tech world severely lack. When Linus speaks, I do not need to thread carefully, wondering what his hidden agenda might be or when he will ask me to buy a product. He is a dreamer, he has vision and desires, but they are those of a simple man who lives in community as every other human does. He does not think about how he can take advantage of the situation to his personal benefit, that is the businessman that has no claim on his soul. The greed and obstinance of the tech titans is what allowed them to become as dominant as they have, but Linus has no interest in that to the point of unintelligibility for some. After all, who could be uninterested in becoming filthy rich?
He describes his younger self as being weird. This is not a badge of honor nor one of disgrace he bears. It is what it is. He feels disconnected, distanced from it and can analyze it without much emotion one way or the other. He was evidently a smart kid, but most importantly, an aware kid. Aware of his position in the world, aware of his capacities and what he has and what he never will. Like an engineer, he did not fight or strive for the variables in the circumstances, simply took them in and calculated what he could do with them. When you are distanced from yourself in such a way, the pride and ego never have time to fester. He is not interested in driving the car, for he never saw life through such a lens. He wants to help build the car itself, such that others can live easier. Is that an unintelligible endeavor?