Let’s wrap up this week’s news with something a bit more on the curiosity side than pure tech, but still very much worth your attention. It’s a photo that recently surfaced on Reddit. Normally, this wouldn’t make my radar, but this one’s different—it captures a moment that could easily be considered historic.
Why’s that? The photo features four legendary figures who helped shape the world of computing as we know it. But what really makes it special is that it’s probably the very first time two of them have ever appeared side by side in the same shot: Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates and the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds.
This is the kind of photo that would’ve been nearly impossible to imagine 30 years ago. Back then, the leaders of the Windows and Linux camps were at each other’s throats—trading jabs, insults, and labels that went way beyond polite disagreement.
Fast forward to today, and the landscape couldn’t be more different. What once seemed unthinkable is now an everyday reality. Microsoft’s cloud giant, Azure, runs heavily on Linux infrastructure. Going even further, Microsoft now has its own Linux distribution, tailor-made for its cloud operations.
If you had predicted that three decades ago… well, let’s say people might have suggested you book a therapy session—immediately. But, as the saying goes, the only constant is change.
The published information says the photo was taken at “a dinner hosted by Marc.” Honestly, the exact purpose of the event—or whether that’s even fully accurate—doesn’t matter all that much. What really counts is the photo. It’s a powerful snapshot that’s sure to go down in history, bringing a mix of nostalgia and smiles. Most of all, it reminds us that even the biggest differences aren’t impossible to overcome.
Over the years, so much has been written about Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds that there’s really not much new to say. Still, seeing them side by side in what’s likely their first photo together—both smiling—is something that feels genuinely uplifting to me.
Now, the other two people in the photo might not be as instantly recognizable to many of our readers, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less important. On the contrary, their impact on the computing world has been nothing short of remarkable.
The man on the left is Mark Russinovich, a software engineer, author, and co-founder of Sysinternals, now CTO of Microsoft Azure. He has become synonymous with deep Windows diagnostics and cloud-scale management. In the late 1990s, his suite of tools (Process Explorer, Autoruns, Procmon) revolutionized the way administrators and security professionals understood Windows internals.
The man on the far right is another living legend: Dave Cutler. Let me put it this way—he’s one of the key people behind OpenVMS and the brilliant lead architect who designed Windows NT’s kernel and hardware-abstraction layer—technologies that remain at the heart of every current Windows release, from server farms to laptops. So, it’s no surprise that people often call him the “father of Windows NT.”
So, Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds are standing side by side in a friendly photo—what a time to be alive, right? Way to go, guys! Wishing everyone an amazing week ahead!
