Scott McNealy

Cofounder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems

• Born: November 13, 1954
• Place of Birth: Columbus, Indiana

Primary Company/Organization: Sun Microsystems

Introduction

In 1982, Scott McNealy cofounded Sun Microsystems with Andy Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla, and Bill Joy, as part of the high-tech boom of Silicon Valley during the 1980s. Unlike most senior executives in Silicon Valley then and now, McNealy had a business background and little experience in computers or engineering; he had been recruited by fellow Stanford alumnus Khosla for exactly that reason.

Early Life

Scott McNealy was born on November 13, 1954, in Columbus, Indiana, and moved as a child to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His father was a factory worker in the automobile industry. McNealy attended Cranbrook, an elite preparatory school, and has praised the experience, especially that of being treated as a more responsible young adult than he had been acknowledged to be in public school. Although not a diligent student, he found that prep school eased his way into the Ivy League. McNealy attended Harvard University, earning a bachelor's degree in economics. He applied to the Stanford Graduate School of Business but did not get in on his first try, so he spent two years working as a plant foreman overseeing the manufacture of tractor body panels in a Rockwell factory. On his third attempt, he was accepted at Stanford, becoming one of the few students at the school working toward his master's in business administration with a focus on manufacturing.

After graduate school, McNealy took a job with the FMC Corporation, which built Bradley tanks, and after a year he moved on to Onyx Systems, in Cupertino, California, a Unix-based microprocessor manufacturer. He had been recruited for the job by his former economics professor at Harvard, William Raduchel. Raduchel had been the reason McNealy majored in economics—he had entered Harvard as a declared premedical student, but Raduchel had inspired an interest in economics. McNealy had not been a hacker or amateur programmer and had no contact with what is now called geek culture; unlike many of those involved in Silicon Valley start-ups, his background was strictly in business, and it was as much happenstance as anything else that brought him into the computer industry.

In 1982, when McNealy was working at Onyx Systems as director of manufacturing, Stanford classmate Vinod Khosla got in touch with him, looking for someone with business experience to join Andy Bechtolsheim's start-up, Sun Microsystems.

Life's Work

McNealy not only joined Sun (as vice president of operations); he assumed the chief executive officer (CEO) role in 1984. A year later, Khosla left the company. McNealy served as CEO for twenty-two years before stepping down. While at Sun, he hired Raduchel as chief information officer.

Although the term “Silicon Valley” had first been coined in 1971 in reference to the number of silicon chips manufactured in the region, it did not become popular until the high-tech boom of the 1980s. Sun was a large part of this boom, along with Oracle, 3Com, Silicon Graphics, and Apple.

McNealy has long advocated network solutions, and Sun's motto at one time was “The Network Is the Computer.” He has expressed skepticism of technologies that focus on client-side resources over network resources—the iPod is his common example, as he believes it represents a transitional technology, like the answering machine, that will soon be rendered obsolete by a replacement that streams music stored on a network. In this respect he has much in common with cloud computing advocates such as Ray Ozzie.

Although rarely in the spotlight to the extent of many other Silicon Valley CEOs, McNealy did not censor himself either; he once referred to Microsoft's Bill Gates as “a convicted monopolist.” McNealy has occasionally been the focus of controversy because of his libertarian yet defeatist attitudes toward privacy in an age of increasing privacy concerns. He is on the record as saying that the age of privacy has come to an end, a common concern of both libertarians and others; rather than seek remedy for this, though, or protections for what privacy is left, he seems to think this loss should simply be accepted as inevitable.

In 2006, McNealy retired from the CEO position. He and his successor as CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, both testified in 2012 in a trial concerning Google's use of Java in its Android operating system. McNealy testified that while Sun had typically allowed other companies to use Java, it had required that the company obtain a commercial license and that it retain Java's compatibility. Schwartz testified that he had hoped Google would take out a commercial license but had opted not to sue Google.

McNealy continued to serve as chairman of Sun's board of directors until 2010, when the company was bought by Oracle. In 2011, he began seeking funding for Wayin, a social media start-up based in Denver. Wayin launched quietly, offering a service focused on opinion polls users can both create and vote in, while connecting to other users and linking polls to other social networks. The service launched with apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, as well as a website. As with other social networks, the revenue generation comes from selling consumer preference data to marketers; Wayin's focus on polls promises significant depth of such information if the service becomes widely used. McNealy served as the startup's CEO between 2015 and 2016, when Wayin bought a rival company, EngageSciences, whose CEO, Richard Jones, took over as chief executive of the combined company. McNealy retained his position as chair of the company's board of directors. Cheetah Digital, an independent, enterprise cross-channel marketing software company, acquired Wayin in July 2019. In 2023, McNealy became an operating partner at Flume Ventures, a company that invests in founders who are building the next generation of tech platforms.

McNealy has also served as an adviser to Hardcore Computer (based in Rochester, Minnesota), a designer of custom computer systems using liquid submersion cooling; Crucial Point, a national security technology firm offering consulting, research, and due diligence; Nyoombl (“nimble”), a Palo Alto–based video website that makes video conversations between two parties public in order to post debates and interviews; and Greenplum Software, a data-warehousing company that develops database software and a customer and partner portal for instant downloads of database products.

Personal Life

McNealy married Susan Ingemanson in 1994. The couple has four sons: Maverick, Dakota, Colt, and Scout. Politically, McNealy is a libertarian. A devoted and skilled golfer, he is the commissioner of the Alternative Golf Association; Golf Digest named him the top golfer among CEOs in 2002. He is also an amateur ice hockey player.

Bibliography

Ceruzzi, Paul E. Computing: A Concise History. Cambridge: MIT, 2012. Print.

Garofoli, Joe. "Scott McNealy Has Long Been One of Trump's Few Friends in Silicon Valley." San Francisco Chronicle. 18 Sept. 2019, www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Scott-McNealy-has-long-been-one-of-Trump-s-few-14447197.php. Accessed 7 Mar. 2024.

Hall, Mark, and John Barry. Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems. New York: Contemporary, 1991. Print.

Smith, Virginia K. "Tech Billionaire Scott McNealy Relists Bay Area Mansion for Nearly $54 Million." Mansion Global, 15 June 2022, www.mansionglobal.com/articles/tech-billionaire-scott-mcnealy-relists-bay-area-mansion-for-nearly-54-million-01655316566. Accessed 7 Mar. 2024.

Southwick, Karen. High Noon: The Inside Story of Scott McNealy and the Rise of Sun Microsystems. New York: Wiley, 1999. Print.