The Payoff: Ford uses his commuting time to return phone calls, answer email, and catch up on his reading. "It lets me work a 12-hour day - which is a plus for the company," he says. "It also gives me 3 hours of uninterrupted think time - which I rarely get in the office."
Coordinates: Robert Ford, rford@extensity.com
The Talent: Linus Torvalds, 28, originator of the Linux operating system, which is revered by tech devotees everywhere. More than 5 million computers use Linux, including workstations at NASA that run experiments on the space shuttle. Torvalds, until recently a researcher at the University of Helsinki, was ready to move out of academia.
The Offer: Transmeta Corp., a Santa Clara, California-based company that develops multimedia PC components, pitched Torvalds to join its elite software-engineering team. The high-flying startup's backers include Microsoft cofounder and mega-investor Paul Allen.
The Dealmaker: Linux is a career-defining project, and Torvalds intends to take his project with him wherever he goes. He was ready to leave the university - provided that his new employer would let him devote some of his work time to refining Linux. For the operating system to remain useful, it must be constantly updated. "Whatever I did," Torvalds says, "I wanted to do Linux as well - that was non-negotiable." Transmeta agreed. After all, it too uses Linux. But Torvalds asked the company to put the arrangement in writing: Any improvements that he makes to Linux become his intellectual property, even if he uses company time and equipment in the process.
The Payoff: Transmeta gets a world-class developer. Torvalds gets the assurance that his creation will remain his calling card. "Linux is a big part of my life," he says, "and it's important that it continue to be a vital part of my career." But now that he's developing "specialties" for Transmeta, there will be more to Torvalds's career than just Linux.
Coordinates: Linus Torvalds, torvalds@transmeta.com
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