Scott McNealy's Memo to Sun Employees

Letter from Scott to all Sun Microsystem's employees. Oracle last week got the final ok to complete the acquisition of Sun. This is really sad news, since Sun was a company i liked, although i didnt directly work for it, i worked on hardware and software. I liked many of the ideals and goals that Scott and Sun pursued. I hope he is able to bounce back, like Steve did, one day, not too distant in the future.

Subject: Thanks for a great 28 years Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 From: Scott McNealy To: [all Sun employees]

Gang, When I interviewed many of you for employment at Sun over the years, one commitment often made was that things will change above, below, and around you faster than any place you have ever been. Looks like this was one area we exceeded plan for 28 years. While it was never theprimary vision to be acquired by Oracle, it was always an interesting option. And this huge event is upon us now. Let's all embrace it with all of the enthusiasm and class and talent that we have to offer. This combination has the potential to put Sun, its people, and its technology at the center of yet another industry and game-changing inflection point. The opportunity is well-documented and articulated by Larry and the Oracle folks. Not much I can add on this score. This is a very powerful merger. And way better than some of the alternatives we were facing. So what do I say to all of you, now this is happening? It turns out that one simple message to the large and diverse Sun community is actually quite hard to craft. Even for a big mouth who is always ready with a clever quip. The community includes our resellers and customers, our current and former employees, their friends and families who supported our employees on their mission to change the industry, our investors, our supply and service partners, students and educators, and even our competitors with whom we often collaborated. But let me try. Though nothing I could write comes close to matching the unbelievably strong and positive emotions I have for you all. See, I never was able to master dispassion. I truly loved starting, running, and living Sun. And the last four years have not been without serious withdrawal. And the EU approval rocked me more than it should have. So, to be honest, this is not a note this founder wants to write. Sun, in my mind, should have been the great and surviving consolidator. But I love the market economy and capitalism more than I love my company. And I sure "hope" America regains its love affair with capitalism. And except for the auto industry, financial industry, health care, and some other places (I digress), the invisible hand is doing its thing quite efficiently. So I am more than willing to accept this outcome. And my hat is off to one of the greatest capitalists I have ever met, Larry Ellison. He will do well with the assets that Sun brings to Oracle. What we did right and wrong at Sun over the years might make for interesting reading. However, I am not a book writer. I am a husband, father of four, and a builder and leader of people who want to make a difference. But spare me a bit of nostalgia. Not of the mistakes we made, and lord knows I made a ton. But of the things we did right and well. First and foremost, Sun innovated like crazy. We took it to the limit (see Eagles). And though we did not monetize our inventions as well as we could have, few companies have the track record in R&D that we had over the last 28 years. This made working at Sun really cool. Thanks to all of you inventors and risk takers who changed how we live. Sun cared about its customers. Even more than we cared about our own company at times. We looked at our customer's mission as more important than ours. Maybe we should have asked for more revenue in return, but our employees were always ready to help first. I love this about Sun, which I guess makes me a good capitalist, if not a great capitalist. Sun did not cheat, lie, or break the rule of law or decency. While we enjoyed breaking the rules of conventional wisdom and archaic business practice, and for sure loved to win in the market, we did so with a solid reputation for integrity. Nearly three decades of competing without a notable incident of our folks going off course morally or legally. Not all executives and big companies are bad. Really. There are good companies out there. Special thanks to all of my employees for this. I never had to hide the newspaper in shame from my children. Sun was a financial success. We paid billions in taxes, salaries, purchases, leases, training, and even lawyers and accountants for devastatingly cumbersome SOX and legal compliance (oops, more classic digression). Long-term and smart investors made billions in SUNW. And our customers generated revenue and savings using our equipment in countless ways. Many employees started families, bought homes, and put them through school while working at Sun. Our revenues over 28 years exceeded $200B. Few companies make it to the F200. We did. Nice. Sun employees had way more fun than any other company. By far. From our dress code ("You must!") to beer busts to our April Fools' pranks to SunRise to our quiet enjoyment at night of a long, hard, well-done day of work, no company enjoyed "work" more than Sun. Thanks to all of our employees past and present for making Sun such a blast. I could go on for a long time reminiscing about the good and great stuff we did at Sun, but just allow me one last one. We shared. Not the greatest attribute for a capitalist. But one I could not change and was not willing to change about Sun while I was in charge. We shared in the success of Sun with our resellers. With our employees through stock options, SunShare, beer busts, and the like (for as long as Congress would allow) and through our efforts to keep as many of them on board for as long as possible during the inevitable down cycles. With our partners through the Java Community Process, through our open-source collaborations, and licensing strategies. With our customers through our commitments to low barriers to exit. Sun was never just about us. It was about we. And that may be a bit of the reason we are where we are today. But I have few regrets (see Sinatra's "My Way") and will always look back at Sun and its gang with only pride. Enormous pride. You are the best this industry ever had, though few outside of Sun recognized it. And what we are about will live on in Sparc, Solaris, Java, our products, and our spirit. Well past everyone's recollections of what we did together. I will never forget, though. Oracle is getting a crown jewel of the technology industry. They will do great things with Sun. Do your best to support them, and keep the Sun spirit alive and well in the industry. Our children will be better for it. Thanks for the off-the-charts support to everyone who ever carried a Sun badge, used our products, or helped our company through the years. And thanks to my wonderful wife, Susan, who gave this desperado (see Eagles) a chance to choose the Queen of Hearts before it was too late. Someday, hopefully, you will all get to see or meet her and my other life's works named Maverick, Dakota, Colt, and Scout. If you do, perhaps you will understand why I stepped back from the CEO role four years ago. And why I feel like the luckiest guy in the whole world. My best to all of you, and remember: Kick butt and have fun! Scott

Burger - only 4 years old

I saw this recently on Youtube. Its sounds crazy, but i find no reason to disbelieve it. I want to have one for myself, but then i dont frequent these places often. There was a time, when BurgerKing was part of a weekly affair, not anymore. I had my own experiments with these crappy food. These days, i wont say i dont eat them, but i surely dont enjoy them as much, and i think if i grab one about every month thats a great thing. I wish it was down to zero.

I was never a fan of McDonalds. But people who watch this, mustnt think that the other burger places are fully absolved. I am sure they probably use something similar. I tried to do some search on the internet for more news and evidence, didnt find too many, directly related ones, but there is plenty of bad news about these food. Anyway, this is only one more information we could use to argue against making this kind of food a stable diet.

Garbage babies

Midway is an atoll, in the Pacific ocean, in the middle of nowhere. I first came to know of this island, from WWII stories as pacific based used by both Japanese and US to fight the war. Today the island offers another global perspective. The video below is self explanatory.

One would think how can an action here affect something 2000 miles away. Well here is proof it does. We are all interconnected on this planet, in one way or another. We have an oppurtunity to save this earth we live.

If only we try.

Why Men shouldn't write advice columns

I received this in my email yesterday, and i thought this was funny and also required a bit of thought by either side. I cant vouch for the authenticity of this publication or its context of publication, it is nevertheless funny. And if this is real, well it very well could be, and this is the funnier or sad part.

Hunt 'em down

If you dont get it, you wont get it.

'Save the Women and Children ... and My Bonus Too'

This cartoon was chosen by Time Magazine as the Top 10 Political Cartoon. I really like the 'rat' part of the cartoon, a very apt representation.

3rd Largest Rocket Engine

Is this important ? Of the many agencies that the Indian government has created, ISRO has been continuously achieving successes, and this testing will be one more step in its 'giant leap for the desi humankind'.
From what little i know of what the ISRO does, it not only builds and launches rockets and sattelites, it actually has been taking a lot of initiatives to spread the use and application of space technology. I know first hand of how ISRO team interacts with users on the tele-medicine front.

I think it is important, in this day and age. Kudos to them, and hope they achieve more success. I'm personally looking forward to more launches from ISRO.

Drying your Laundry

Why should there so much fuss about where one dries their laundry? While the americans and the west are waking up to this, we in India are slowly adding electric driers to our home appliance list.

Klueless5

Just finished playing. This is my first 'live' experience, where i started playing as soon as it was announced on Nov 5th. I wish i had devoted more time (what the hell !!). Well, so did many others who played. But i lost 24hrs flying from Chennai to DC, and then when i realized that 30 was not the magic number, lethargy set in at 31, and i was doing about 1 or 2 levels a day. I also thought i missed the HOF (Hall of Fame), and so took it even more easier. But soon realized that the HOF will have 250+, and i think i may make it (yeah right, there are already 247 in there, right now!).

Anyway, i hope to post my experience and my version of the klues to the different levels soon. Not now, since the game is still running, and moderators are helping the million cattle attempting to cross the winning post. I consider myself lucky, as i believe i made it under 300, maybe even in the under 250-260 position. A little more dedication and maybe i could have gloated over my name in the list. There is always a next time.

One sour note though. Last year, after crossing 30, the gamekeepers made the players sweat a bit to solve an extra puzzle before allowing entry to the HOF. This year they added 8 more levels to the actual game. I think that idea was stupid. The game is tough, it requires, quite a bit of lateral thinking, yahoo and wiki searching, and more importantly, inherent ability to connect two or more disparate thought points. So, while there is no rule that say, only 30 levels etc, the last 4 had only 30. We the players have come to accept that as a standard now. So when you change these rules, people are going to be upset. If it were facebook or yahoo, they would be more appreciative of user feedback. Now, klueless is a game, am not sure how much of an impact this would make on game wardens.

But due credit is due to them. It still was a fantastic experience. Klues for Level 1-19 and Level 20-38.

Amar Chitra Katha

A few weeks back, i decided to make the leap and place an order. An order, i wanted to do since i was about 10 years old. To buy the entire collection of Amar Chitra Katha books. I have the whole set that is in circulation today, thats about 255 books.

There are a total of 439 ACK titles, of which only 255 are in print. The current complete set includes 248 Amar Chitra Katha titles and 7 special issues. I have copied the list from the ACK site, and presented them below:

Current Titles:
A Bag of Gold Coins, Abhimanyu, Adi Shankara, Ajatashatru, Akbar, Amar Singh Rathor, Amrapali, Anand Math, Ancestors of Rama, Andhaka, Angulimala, Aniruddha, Aruni and Uttanka, Ashoka, Ashwini Kumar, Ayyappan
Babasaheb Ambedkar, Bagha Jatin, Bahubali, Bajirao, Baladitya and Yashodharma, Banda Bahadur, Bappa Rawal, Basaveshwara, Battle of Wits, Beni Madho & Pir Ali, Bhagat Singh, Bheema and Hanuman, Bheeshma, Bikal the Terrible, Bimbisara, Birbal the Clever, Birbal the Genius, Birbal the Inimitable, Birbal the Just, Birbal the Wise, Birbal the Witty, Birbal to the Rescue, Buddha
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Chanakya, Chand Bibi, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Chandragupta Maurya, Chandrahasa, Chandralalat, Chokha Mela
Dasharatha, Dayananda, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, Devi Choudhurani, Dhruva and Ashtavakra, Draupadi, Drona, Durgadas
Elephanta, Ellora Caves - The Glory of the Rashtrakootas
Fa-Hien, Friends and Foes: Animal Tales From The Mahabharata
Gandhari, Ganesha, Ganga, Garuda, Ghanshyamdas Birla, Ghatotkacha, Gopal and the Cowherd, Gopal the Jester, Guru Arjan, Guru Gobind Singh, Guru Nanak, Guru Tegh Bahadur
Hanuman, Hanuman to the Rescue, Harischandra, Harsha, Hitopadesha: Choice of Friends, Hitopadesha: How Friends are parted, Hiuen Tsang
Indra and Shachi, Indra and Shibi
J R D Tata, Jagadis Chandra Bose, Jagannatha of Puri, Jahangir, Jallianwala Bagh, Jamsetji Tata, Jataka Tales: Bird Stories, Jataka Tales: Deer Stories, Jataka Tales: Elephant Stories, Jataka Tales: Jackal Stories, Jataka Tales: Monkey Stories, Jataka Tales: Nandivishala, Jataka Tales: Stories of Courage, Jataka Tales: Stories of Wisdom, Jataka Tales: Tales of Misers, Jataka Tales: The Giant and the Dwarf, Jataka Tales: The Magic Chant, Jataka Tales: The Mouse Merchant, Jataka Tales: True Friends, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jayadratha, Jayaprakash Narayan, Jnaneshwar
Kabir, Kacha and Devayani, Kalidasa, Kalpana Chawla, Kannagi, Kapala Kundala, Karna, Karttikeya, Kesari the Flying Thief, King Kusha, King Shalivahana, Krishna, Krishna and Jarasandha, Krishna and Narakasura, Krishna and Rukmini, Krishna and Shishupala, Krishna and the False Vaasudeva, Krishnadeva Raya, Kumbhakarna, Kunwar Singh
Lachit Barphukan, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Lokamanya Tilak
Madhwacharya, Mahabharata, Mahavira, Mahiravana, Malavika, Mangal Pande, Megasthenes, Mirabai
Nachiketa and other stories, Nahusha, Nala Damayanti, Noor Jahan
Padmini, Panchatantra: Crows and Owls, Panchatantra: How the Jackel ate the Elephant, Panchatantra: The Brahmin and the Goat, Panchatantra: The Dullard and Other Stories, Panchatantra: The Greedy Mother-in-law, Panchatantra: The Jackal and the Wardrum, Panna and Hadi Rani, Paurava and Alexander, Prahlad, Prithviraj Chauhan
Rabindranath Tagore, Raja Bhoja, Raja Raja Chola, Ram Shastri, Rama, Raman of Tenali, Raman the Matchless Wit, Ramana Maharshi, Ramanuja, Rana Kumbha, Rana Pratap, Rana Sanga, Rani Abbakka, Rani Durgavati, Rani of Jhansi, Ranjit Singh, Rash Behari Bose, Ratnavali, Ravana Humbled
Sakshi Gopal, Samudra Gupta, Sati and Shiva, Savitri, Sea Route To India, Shah Jahan, Shakuntala, Shankar Dev, Sher Shah, Shiva Parvati, Shivaji, Shrenik - Jain Tales, Soordas, Sri Ramakrishna, Subhas Chandra Bose, Subramania Bharati, Sudama, Sultana Razia, Surya, Swami Chinmayananda
Tales from the Upanishads, Tales of Arjuna, Tales of Balarama, Tales of Durga, Tales of Maryada Rama, Tales of Narada, Tales of Sai Baba, Tales of Shiva, Tales of Shivaji, Tales of Vishnu, Tales of Yudhisthira, Tanaji, Tansen, The Acrobat and Other Buddhist Tales, The Adventures of Agad Datta, The Adventures of Baddu and Chhotu, The Celestial Necklace, The Churning of the Ocean, The Cowherd of Alawi, The Deadly Feast, The Fearless Boy and other Buddhist Tales, The Fool's Disciples, The Gita, The Golden Mongoose, The Hidden Treasure - A Jataka Tale, The Historic City of Delhi, The Learned Pandit, The Legend Of Lalitaditya, The Lord of Lanka, The Magic Grove, The Pandava Princes, The Pandavas in Hiding, The Pandit and the Milkmaid, The Priceless Gem, The Prince and The Magician, The Queen's Necklace, The Rani Of Kittur, The Sons of Rama, The Symantaka Gem, The Tiger and the Woodpecker, The Tiger-Eater, Tipu Sultan, Tripura, Tulsidas
Udayana, Uloopi, Urvashi
Vali, Vasantasena, Vasavadatta, Veer Hammir, Veer Savarkar, Velu Thampi, Vidyasagar, Vikramaditya, Vikramaditya's Throne, Vishwamitra, Vivekananda
Yayati
Zarathushtra,

Special Issues:
Mahatma Ghandhi, Valmiki's Ramayana, Dasha Avatar, Jesus Christ, Bhagawat - The Krishna Avatar, Mahabharata (Set Of 3 Books), Ram Charit Manas