Scott McNealy | |
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Scott McNealy presenting an award to Steve Hoffman of Orbitz.com at JavaOne 2004 |
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Born | November 13, 1954 Columbus, Indiana |
Known for | CEO and co-founder, Sun Microsystems |
Website | |
Sun Microsystems Scott McNealy bio |
Scott McNealy (born November 13, 1954) is an American business executive. He co-founded computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim.
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Sun Microsystems, along with companies such as Silicon Graphics, 3Com, and Oracle Corporation, was part of a wave of successful startup companies in California's Silicon Valley during the early and mid-1980s. In 1982, McNealy, who was then manufacturing director at Onyx Systems,[1][2] a vendor of microprocessor-based Unix systems, was approached by fellow Stanford alumnus Khosla to help provide the necessary organizational and business leadership for the fledgling company. The name "Sun" was derived from Bechtolsheim's original SUN (Stanford University Network) computer project, the SUN workstation.[2]
In 1984, McNealy took over the CEO role from Khosla, who would ultimately leave the company in 1985. On April 24, 2006, McNealy stepped down as CEO after serving in that position for 22 years, and turned the job over to Jonathan Schwartz. McNealy is one of the few CEOs of a major corporation to have had a tenure of over twenty years.
Unlike most people who become involved in high technology industries, Scott McNealy did not come from the world of amateur programmers, hackers, and computer scientists. Instead, his background was in business, having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to college, he graduated from Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where his father was in the automotive industry; most of his work experience prior to joining Sun was in automotive manufacturing.[1][2]
McNealy was born in Columbus, Indiana. He is married, and has four sons: Maverick, Dakota, Colt, and Scout. He is known to be an enthusiastic ice hockey player and has been ranked as one of the best golfers in executive ranks; McNealy has self-deprecatingly referred to himself as a "golf major" who wound up running a high-tech business.[3] He is a self-described libertarian.[4] McNealy is the commissioner of the Alternative Golf Association (known as "Flogton").[5]
In 1999, Stephen Manes quoted McNealy as saying, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."[6] Manes criticized the statement in his Full Disclosure column: "He's right on the facts, wrong on the attitude. ... Instead of 'getting over it', citizens need to demand clear rules on privacy, security, and confidentiality."[6] The authors of Privacy in the 21st Century admitted, "While a shocking statement, there is an element of truth in it."[7]
McNealy was an early advocate of the networked environment; his company's motto was "The Network is the Computer". At times, he has been known to be skeptical of products that do not integrate well with networked environments. One example McNealy has given involved the Apple iPod. As quoted in The Register, McNealy said, "There’s a pendulum thing where stuff is on the client side and then goes back into the network where it belongs. The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network. Your iPod is like your home answering machine. I guarantee you it will be hard to sell an iPod five or seven years from now when every cell phone can access your entire music library wherever you are."[8]
Preceded by Vinod Khosla |
CEO of Sun Microsystems 1984–2006 |
Succeeded by Jonathan Schwartz |
Preceded by Owen Brown |
President of Sun Microsystems 1984–1999 2002–2004 |
Succeeded by Edward Zander |
Preceded by Edward Zander |
Succeeded by Jonathan Schwartz |
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Preceded by Vinod Khosla |
Chairman of Sun Microsystems 1984–2010 |
Company acquired by Oracle Corporation |