Scott McNealy
Scott McNealy (born
November 13,
1954 in
Columbus, Indiana) is the well-known Chairman of
Sun Microsystems, the computer technology company he co-founded in
1982 along with
Vinod Khosla,
Bill Joy, and
Andy Bechtolsheim. In
1984, McNealy took over the
CEO role from co-founder Vinod Khosla, who would ultimately leave the company in
1985. On
24 April 2006, McNealy stepped down as CEO after serving in that position for 22 years, and turned the job over to
Jonathan Schwartz. 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. He is a self-described
libertarian.
Unlike most people involved in high technology industries, Scott McNealy did not come from the world of amateur programmers, hackers, and computer scientists. Instead, his background is from the business end, having graduated from
Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. He received his
MBA from the
Stanford Graduate School of Business. At
Stanford, McNealy met Khosla, Joy, and Bechtolsheim and helped provide the necessary organizational and business leadership for the fledgling Sun Microsystems ("Sun" originally stood for
Stanford
University
Network). McNealy is one of the few CEOs of a major corporation to have had a tenure of over twenty years.
McNealy enjoys playing
ice hockey, a fact that is frequently brought up during interviews and press mentions.
*Chairman of the Board of Directors since April 2006
*Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer from April 2004 to April 2006
*Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer from July 2002 to April 2004
*Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer from April 1999 to June 2002
*Chairman of the Board of Directors, President and Chief Executive Officer from December 1984 to April 1999
*President and Chief Operating Officer from February 1984 to December 1984
*Vice President of Operations from February 1982 to February 1984.
McNealy was an early advocate of the networked environment. At times, he has been known to be skeptical of products that don't integrate well with networked environments.
A recent example of McNealy's criticism was the
Apple iPod. According to
The Register, a
United Kingdom-based technology magazine, 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 magazine quoted him as saying. "The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network." He continued, "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."
The Register offered its own rejoinder to McNealy's comment in the same article: "Well, sure. Unless your iPod is your cell phone."
*
Sun Microsystems' official Scott McNealy bio*
Scott McNealy's biography at the International Directory of Business Biographies
*
Computer History Museum, 11-Jan-2006: Sun Founders Panel**
Sun Feature Story: The Fab Four Reunites (webcast of the event)
