Linus, born in Helsinki Finland, is the son of a journalist family, swedish-speaking family.  Tovalds graduated with a master's degree from University of Helsinki with a thesis titled "Linux: A Portable operating system".  The Linux operating system kernel, developed for x86 architecture has contributed to a multi-billion industry which also further enabled the advancement of the open source software development. 

He currently lives in San Jose, California together with his wife, 3 daughters and a cat.  He made a fortune of 20 million dollars from the stock options presented to him by Red Hat and VA Linux, in gratidue for his creation.