Andrei Linde was born in Moscow on March 2, 1948. He studied physics in the Moscow State University. In 1975, he started his work at the Lebedev Physical Institute, and in 1985, he became a professor of physics. In 1989, he joined the Theory Division at CERN, Switzerland, and in 1990, he became a professor of physics at Stanford University.

Linde is one of the authors of the inflationary universe scenario, which is gradually becoming the standard paradigm of modern cosmology. He invented its most popular versions: new inflation, chaotic inflation, and hybrid inflation. His theory of an eternal chaotic inflation suggests that our universe is actually a multiverse consisting of many inflationary universes with different properties that sprout from an eternal cosmic tree. In 2003, he together with Kachru, Kallosh, and Trivedi developed the mechanism of vacuum stabilization in string theory. It serves as a basis for most of the recent attempts to construct realistic models of elementary particle physics and the theory of inflationary multiverse.