Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

Linux operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became the first African to travel to space, doing so as a

space tourist Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

. He holds

dual citizenship Multiple citizenship (or multiple nationality) is a person's legal status in which a person is at the same time recognized by more than one sovereign state, country under its nationality law, nationality and citizenship law as a national or cit ...

from South Africa and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. As of 2020, the '' Sunday Times Rich List'' estimated Shuttleworth's worth at £500 million.

Early life

Shuttleworth was born in Welkom, Free State, South Africa, to a surgeon and a nursery-school teacher. He attended Western Province Preparatory School (where he became Head Boy in 1986), followed by one term at Rondebosch Boys' High School, and then Bishops/

Diocesan College The Diocesan College (commonly known as Bishops) is a private, English medium, boarding and day high school for boys situated in the suburb of Rondebosch in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The school was established o ...

where he was Head Boy in 1991. Shuttleworth obtained a

Bachelor of Business Science The Bachelor of Business Science (BBusSci) is a four-year honours level degree providing for a scientifically based study of economic and management sciences, "premised on the application of quantitative methods". The degree is offered in South A ...

degree in

Finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

and

Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

. As a student, he was involved in the installation of the university's first residential Internet connections.

Work

In 1995, Shuttleworth founded

Thawte Consulting Thawte Consulting (pronounced "thought") is a certificate authority (CA) for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa. As of December 30, 2016, its then-parent company, NortonLifeLock, Symantec Group, w ...

, a company specializing in

digital certificate In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes the public key and information about it, informa ...

s and

Internet security Internet security is a branch of computer security. It encompasses the Internet, browser security, web site security, and network security as it applies to other applications or operating systems as a whole. Its objective is to establish rules ...

. According to The Official Ubuntu Book, Thawte became the second-largest

certificate authority In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates. A digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate. Thi ...

after

VeriSign Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and generic top-level d ...

. Shuttleworth sold Thawte to VeriSign in December 1999, earning him R3.5 billion ( million, equivalent to $ million in ). In September 2000, Shuttleworth formed HBD Venture Capital (''Here be Dragons''), a

business incubator A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services, starting with management training and office space, and ending with venture ...

and

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

provider, now managed by Knife Capital. In March 2004 he formed Canonical Ltd., for the promotion and commercial support of

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

projects, particularly the

operating system. In December 2009, Shuttleworth stepped down as CEO of Canonical Ltd. to focus on "product design, partnerships, and customers", with COO Jane Silber succeeding him. Shuttleworth returned to the position of CEO of Canonical in July 2017, with Silber moving to Canonical's

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

Linux and FOSS

In the 1990s, Shuttleworth participated as a developer of the

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

. According to the Official Ubuntu Book, he was the first to upload the

Apache HTTP Server The Apache HTTP Server ( ) is a free and open-source software, free and open-source cross-platform web server, released under the terms of Apache License, Apache License 2.0. It is developed and maintained by a community of developers under the ...

"into the Debian project's archives". In 2001, he formed the

Shuttleworth Foundation Shuttleworth may refer to: * Shuttleworth (surname) * Shuttleworth, Greater Manchester (historically in Lancashire), a hamlet at the northeastern extremity of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, England * Shuttleworth (canvassing) * The Shuttleworth ...

, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to social innovation and funding educational, free, and

open source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

projects in South Africa, such as the Freedom Toaster. In 2004, he returned to the free-software world by funding the development of

, a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

based on Debian, through his company, Canonical Ltd. In 2005, he founded the Ubuntu Foundation and made an initial investment of US$10 million. In the Ubuntu project, Shuttleworth is often referred to with the

tongue-in-cheek Tongue-in-cheek is an idiom that describes a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner. History The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walte ...

title "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life" (SABDFL). While travelling to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

aboard the

icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

'' Kapitan Khlebnikov'' in early 2004, Shuttleworth took six months of Debian

mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...

archives with him to compile a list of potential hires for the project. In September 2005, he purchased a 65% stake of Impi Linux. On 15 October 2006, Mark Shuttleworth became the first patron of

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that enable collaborative work on its projects. Its products include the KDE Plasma gra ...

, the highest level of commercial sponsorship available. This relationship and financial support for

Kubuntu Kubuntu ( ) is an official flavor of the Ubuntu operating system that uses the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment instead of the GNOME desktop environment. As part of the Ubuntu project, Kubuntu uses the same underlying systems. Kubuntu shares th ...

(the Ubuntu variant using

as the main desktop) ended in 2012. On 17 December 2009, Shuttleworth announced that, effective March 2010, he would step down as CEO of Canonical to focus on product design, partnerships, and customers. Jane Silber, COO since 2004, succeeded him as CEO. In September 2010, he received an honorary degree from the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

for this work. On 9 November 2012, Shuttleworth and

Kenneth Rogoff Kenneth Saul Rogoff (born March 22, 1953) is an American economist and chess Grandmaster. He is the Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University. During the Great Recession, Rogoff was an influential proponent of auste ...

debated

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born Garik Kimovich Weinstein on 13 April 1963) is a Russian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion (1985–2000), political activist and writer. His peak FIDE chess Elo rating system, ra ...

and

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According ...

at the

Oxford Union The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest unive ...

in a

debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse, discussion, and oral addresses on a particular topic or collection of topics, often with a moderator and an audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints. Historica ...

entitled "The Innovation Enigma". On 25 October 2013, Shuttleworth and Ubuntu received the Austrian anti-privacy '' Big Brother Award'' for sending local Ubuntu Unity Dash searches to Canonical servers by default. In 2012, Shuttleworth had defended the anonymisation method used. He later reversed the decision; this feature is not present in current Ubuntu versions.

Spaceflight

Shuttleworth gained international attention on 25 April 2002, becoming the second self-funded space tourist (after

Dennis Tito Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. During mid-2001, he became the first space tourism, space tourist to fund his own visit to space, when he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of IS ...

in 2001) and the first South African in space. Flying through

Space Adventures Space Adventures, Inc. is an American space tourism company founded in 1998 by Eric C. Anderson. Its offerings include zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital spaceflights (with the option to participate in a spacewalk), and other spacefl ...

, he launched aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission as a

spaceflight participant Spaceflight participant () is the term used by NASA, Roscosmos, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for people who travel into space, but are not professional astronauts. While the term gained new prominence with the rise of space touris ...

, paying approximately US$20 million for the voyage (equivalent to $ million in ). Two days later, the

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

arrived at the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

, where he spent eight days participating in experiments related to

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

and

genome A genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as ...

research. On 5 May 2002, he returned to Earth on Soyuz TM-33. To participate in the flight, Shuttleworth underwent one year of training and preparation, including seven months in Star City, Russia. From space, he spoke via video link to

Thabo Mbeki Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (; born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who served as the 2nd democratic president of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008, when he resigned at the request of his party, the African National Cong ...

, then president of South Africa, as part of the Freedom Day celebrations marking the end of

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

. He also had a radio conversation with

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

and a 14-year-old South African girl, Michelle Foster, who asked him to marry her. He dodged the question, stating that he was "very honoured at the question" before changing the subject.Space.com
Nelson Mandela Chats with Shuttleworth
2 May 2002. The terminally ill Foster was provided the opportunity to have a conversation with Mark Shuttleworth and Nelson Mandela by the Reach for a Dream foundation.

Transport

He owns a private jet, a

Bombardier Global Express The Bombardier Global Express is a large cabin, long-range business jet designed and manufactured by Bombardier Aviation. Announced in October 1991, it first flew in October 1996, received its Canadian type certification in July 1998 and ente ...

, often referred to as ''Canonical One'' but owned through his HBD Venture Capital company. The dragon depicted on the side of the plane is Norman, the HBD Venture Capital mascot.

Legal clash with the South African Reserve Bank

When moving R2.5 billion in capital from South Africa to the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

, the

South African Reserve Bank The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is the central bank of South Africa. It was established in 1921 after Parliament passed an act, the "Currency and Bank Act of 10 August 1920", as a direct result of the abnormal monetary and financial condi ...

imposed a R250 million levy to release his assets. Shuttleworth successfully sued the Reserve Bank in the Supreme Court of Appeal to have the levy returned. However, on 18 June 2015, the

Constitutional Court of South Africa The Constitutional Court of South Africa is the supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction. The Court was first establ ...

reversed the lower courts' ruling, finding that the primary purpose of an exit charge was to regulate conduct rather than raise revenue. The court held "...that the exit charge was not inconsistent with the Constitution. The dominant purpose of the exit charge was not to raise revenue but rather to regulate conduct by discouraging the export of capital to protect the domestic economy."

Notes

References

External links

Mark Shuttleworth's homepage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shuttleworth, Mark 1973 births Alumni of Diocesan College, Cape Town British astronauts British bloggers British chief executives British software engineers Canonical (company) Cypherpunks Debian people Living people Open source people People from Welkom South African astronauts South African chief executives South African engineers South African inventors South African people of British descent Space tourists Ubuntu (operating system) people University of Cape Town alumni