Scott McNealy was born on 13th November 1954 in Columbus in Indiana and serves as the chairman of the company Sun Microsystems. He became a billionaire by co-founding Sun Microsystems with Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy and Vinod Khosla, and in 1982. Sun Microsystems is a company that sells computer components and software.
McNealy before entering the company had a background in business rather than computer science like many other people in this type of business. He achieved a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard and got an MBA from Standford Graduate School of Business. Before he went to college he went to Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills. He is married and has four children.
Sun Microsystems joined companies like Oracle Corporation, 3Com and Silicon graphics in the middle of the 1980s when they successfully started up in Silicon Valley in California. The company is now based in Santa Clara in California which is part of the Silicon Valley, with its manufacturing facilities being located in Hillsboro, Oregon in the USA and in Linlithgow in Scotland. In 1982 after McNealy had graduated from Standford, he was approached by Vinod Khosla, who had also attended Stanford who asked him to provide leadership for the business Sun Microsystems. Sun originally stood for Stanford University Network from Bechtolsheim’s original computer project.
McNealy took over Khosla’s job as CEO in 1984 who went on to depart from the company in 1985. Before this he was the Vice President of Operations from February 1982 to February 1984. After this he held the roles CEO and President of the company. He then added Chairman of the Board of Directors to his role in the company in December 1984. In April 1999 he stopped being President of the company and the job was taken over by Edward Zander, but he continued to serve as the Chairman and CEO. In July 2002 he became the President again up until April 2004 when Jonathan Schwartz took over the job. In April 2006 Jonathan Schwartz also took over as CEO after McNealy had worked as the CEO for a total of 22 years. He now remains as Chairman of the Board of Directors.
On 20th April 2009, Sun and Oracle announced that Oracle will take over Sun for $7.4 billion. This was approved by Sun’s shareholders on 16th July 2009 and as of October 2009 the acquisition is pending.