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Scott McNealy

 
Scott McNealy

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Scott McNealy



 
 
Scott McNealy (b. November 13 1954, Columbus, Indiana
Columbus, Indiana

Columbus is the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 39,059 at the 2000 census. The current mayor is Fred Armstrong....
) is the Chairman of Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational corporation vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982....
, the computer technology company he co-founded in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla is a neo-conservative Indian-American venture capitalist. He is an influential personality in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986....
, Bill Joy
Bill Joy

William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vaughan Ronald Pratt, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003....
, and Andy Bechtolsheim
Andy Bechtolsheim

Andreas von Bechtolsheim is a computer scientist who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy....
.

Sun Microsystems, along with companies such as Silicon Graphics, 3Com
3Com

3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Massachusetts....
, and Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation specializes in developing and marketing enterprise software products ? particularly database management systems. Through organic growth and a number of high-profile acquisitions, Oracle enlarged its share of the software market....
, was part of a wave of successful startup companies in California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
's Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The term originally referred to the region's large number of Integrated circuit innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the high-tech s...
 during the early and mid-1980s. In 1982, McNealy was approached by fellow Stanford
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 alumn Khosla to help provide the necessary organizational and business leadership for the fledgling company.






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Scott McNealy (b. November 13 1954, Columbus, Indiana
Columbus, Indiana

Columbus is the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 39,059 at the 2000 census. The current mayor is Fred Armstrong....
) is the Chairman of Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational corporation vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982....
, the computer technology company he co-founded in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla

Vinod Khosla is a neo-conservative Indian-American venture capitalist. He is an influential personality in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986....
, Bill Joy
Bill Joy

William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vaughan Ronald Pratt, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003....
, and Andy Bechtolsheim
Andy Bechtolsheim

Andreas von Bechtolsheim is a computer scientist who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Scott McNealy....
.

Sun Microsystems, along with companies such as Silicon Graphics, 3Com
3Com

3Com is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw, and is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Massachusetts....
, and Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation specializes in developing and marketing enterprise software products ? particularly database management systems. Through organic growth and a number of high-profile acquisitions, Oracle enlarged its share of the software market....
, was part of a wave of successful startup companies in California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
's Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, United States. The term originally referred to the region's large number of Integrated circuit innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the high-tech s...
 during the early and mid-1980s. In 1982, McNealy was approached by fellow Stanford
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 alumn 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
Stanford University Network

The Stanford University network was one of the four original ARPANET nodes. The original node was managed by Stanford Research Institute. As the TCP/IP protocols evolved, a TCP/IP network was built on the main campus, which initially connected the Stanford University computer science department, medical center, and department of electrical...
) computer project.

In 1984, McNealy took over the CEO role from 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
Jonathan I. Schwartz

Jonathan Ian Schwartz is the current President and chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems, as well as a member of the Company's Board of Directors....
. McNealy is one of the few CEOs of a major corporation to have had a tenure of over twenty years.

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 in business, having graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. He received his MBA
Master of Business Administration

The Master of Business Administration is a master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines....
 from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business

The Stanford Graduate School of Business is one of the professional schools of Stanford University, in Stanford, California, California. It is one of the leading business schools in the world....
.

Personal life

McNealy is married, and has four sons: Maverick, Dakota, Colt, and Scout. He is known to be an enthusiastic ice hockey
Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to simply as hockey, is a team sport played on ice. It is a fast paced and physical sport. Ice hockey is most popular in areas that are sufficiently cold for natural reliable seasonal ice cover such as Canada, the northern United States, Scandinavia and Russia, though with the advent of indoor artificial ice r...
 player and has been ranked as one of the best golfer
Golfer

A golfer is a person who plays golf.See also* Amateur golfer* Professional golfer* List of golfers...
s in executive ranks; McNealy has self-deprecatingly referred to himself as a "golf major" who wound up running a high-tech business. He is a self-described libertarian.

Positions at Sun

  • 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


Sun’s motto: “The Network is the Computer”

McNealy was an early advocate of the networked environment. 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
Apple Computer

Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc., is an United States multinational corporation which designs and manufactures consumer electronics and software products....
 iPod
IPod

iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc. and launched on . The product line-up includes the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the video-capable iPod Nano, and the compact iPod Shuffle....
. As quoted in the The Register
The Register

The Register is a United Kingdom technology news and opinion website. It was founded by John Lettice and Mike Magee in 1994 as a newsletter called "Chip Connection", initially as an email service....
, 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."

External links

  • at the International Directory of Business Biographies
    • (webcast of the event)
  • video