Scott McNealy, founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems for the past 22 years, is finally stepping down. Jonathan Schwartz, former head of Lighthouse Design, will succeed him. Jonathan has been “groomed for the role” for years, according to the media. Scott put a positive spin on the move in a conference call with analysts Monday night.
“When you start a company, you always wonder who’s going to carry it on. You can’t run it forever,” McNealy said. “It was going too fast to hand off during the bubble. . . Now we’ve got it stabilized.”
He emphasized the decision to step aside was his.
“We had a late Friday night board call,” McNealy said. “I said, `Gang, it’s time. We had a very solid growth quarter.’ ”
The ‘solid growth’ was a loss of $217M last quarter, compared to a loss of $28M a year ago. The company has lost a total of $4.5 billion in four years.
One Wall Street analyst has said Sun needs to cut 10,350 to 12,150 jobs, or 27 percent to 31 percent of its workforce. “There’s no plan whatsoever for a cut of the magnitude” Wall Street wants, Schwartz said…
Schwartz also announced the promotion of my old professor Greg Papadopoulos, from CTO to executive vice president of research and development.