Linus Torvalds Quotes

Google is a fierce competitor. I wish I was worth a bazillion dollars; that would be really nice. They're a fierce competitor, and they're very good in search. They're very good with their global map thing.

We got bigger, much scarier competitors. We ended up with Microsoft, a company with all the money in the world, the way I look at those guys. And IBM, another company that, historically, dwarfed us.

To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

Every time you go for more competition, some people don't like it, but that's the way it is.

What can we learn from the battle between data and design? What can we learn from the relationship between Google and Apple? Clearly no one school of thought is right: Apple and Google are both wildly successful and profitable companies that changed the world.

One of the ways that Microsoft beat Apple way back in the day was that they were a lot more open; today, in the world I come from, the free software and open-source world, Microsoft is not generally viewed as open; they're viewed as proprietary.

Whether it's Google or Apple or free software, we've got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.

It's Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.

I'm always challenged by someone.

All competitors are fierce competitors; Vodafone is the world's second largest company. We fight it each day. Idea Cellular is big and successful, too. Competition is competition; we are used to it.

Microsoft was not a mysterious, strange entity. You put your PC on and there's an ad for them.

I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It's the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company.

I don't really think anything Microsoft does puts pressure on Apple.

Whatever you're selling, storage or networking or security, you're going head to head with the incumbent players.

Global competition is about winners and losers.

I competed with Yahoo for 15-1/2 years, and the one thing I tried to do over the years was desperately try to get a deal with them.

Monopolies have good sides to them as well as bad sides to them.

We’re far behind [Microsoft]. They are 3 time bigger than we are. They have a monopoly and we don’t—darnit!

Sometimes, for businesses, competition can be inconvenient, because competition means that the race is never over, the game is never won. No matter how well you were doing in the past, there's always someone who are out there wanting to take your place. So the temptation to avoid competition is powerful. It's rooted in motives as old as Adam and Eve: in greed for yet more money, in fear of losing your position in the market and all the benefits it brings.

Competition is always there.

If we see an opportunity in the software/hardware seam, we're going to take it.

You've got to remember there's intense competition between Microsoft and Amazon.

When I was in my heyday, of course I had those who hated me. They were supposed to hate the opposition. But it's good, though. It feels good.

There's a lot of businesses that are working hard, who are at the top of their games. Therefore, it's always going to be a market share fight.

Competition exists everywhere.