Having read a lot of these things from ex-Sun employees, I dearly want to read one with the topic my department is the one that fucked up Sun. I don't think I have seen a topic like that yet.
I actually haven't read a ton of these, so would love to be pointed to what you have found. But yes, everyone will be biased, and I am too. I think that the organization that I was in fucked up plenty (when I joined the company in 1996, SunSoft was led by truly one of the most incompetent executives I have ever encountered, a bumbling oaf that Sun kept putting in charge of different business units, letting him asphyxiate them one by one), but the fact that everyone also sees something else wrong probably tells you a few things: everyone at Sun earnestly wanted the company to succeed; Sun did a bunch of stuff right; Sun did a bunch of other stuff wrong.
Ultimately, the leadership of the company needs to bear the responsibility for the outcome -- and I think it's pretty telling that Sun's executive leadership basically went on to do more or less nothing after Sun. I loved Sun -- but it was a breeding ground for engineers, not executive leadership.
I'm reluctant to call anyone out. I liked Sun a lot, as well as the people I've encountered who worked there. There was a thread between a couple of ex-Sun guys here on hn years ago - I can't find it right now - which made me feel there was a humorous and very human pattern in Sun postmortem comments: "man, that other team really killed Sun, we were doomed after that thing they did." I was pretty curious what the people on that other team (the SPARC microprocessor designers, in the case of that comment thread) might have said in their own defense, where they might have spread some of the blame, and so on.
(perhaps it doesn't do your rather full blog post justice to compare it to something considerably less complete like a comment thread)
> Ultimately, the leadership of the company needs to bear the responsibility for the outcome
I emphatically agree. Maybe it goes without saying but with Sun, multiple generations of leadership, I think.
You can read 'LIFE UNDER THE SUN: My 20-Year Journey at Sun Microsystems' if you want to know what the leader of SPARC said at the time. The book does a lot to sweet talk some of the issues, but also admits to them.
Well he became leader when it was clear that they were deep in the shit. Then he was ask if SPARC should just be killed of. He said know but said he would need 4-5 years to turn it around. And I would argue he didn't even if they made some waves with Sparc T1 chip.
Ultimately I would argue anybody reasonable would go back to conversation and say, we need to kill SPARC and switch to x86 as fast as possible.
justin66 · · focus · HN ↗
bcantrill · · focus · HN ↗
Ultimately, the leadership of the company needs to bear the responsibility for the outcome -- and I think it's pretty telling that Sun's executive leadership basically went on to do more or less nothing after Sun. I loved Sun -- but it was a breeding ground for engineers, not executive leadership.
justin66 · · focus · HN ↗
(perhaps it doesn't do your rather full blog post justice to compare it to something considerably less complete like a comment thread)
> Ultimately, the leadership of the company needs to bear the responsibility for the outcome
I emphatically agree. Maybe it goes without saying but with Sun, multiple generations of leadership, I think.
panick21_ · · focus · HN ↗
Well he became leader when it was clear that they were deep in the shit. Then he was ask if SPARC should just be killed of. He said know but said he would need 4-5 years to turn it around. And I would argue he didn't even if they made some waves with Sparc T1 chip.
Ultimately I would argue anybody reasonable would go back to conversation and say, we need to kill SPARC and switch to x86 as fast as possible.
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
markus_zhang · · focus · HN ↗