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What Sun got wrong

692 points · 437 comments · chmaynard

  1. justin66 · · focus · HN ↗
    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.
    1. bcantrill · · focus · HN ↗
      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.

      1. markus_zhang · · focus · HN ↗
        Actually now that I have worked for 4 companies, I’d like to work for a Sun, even if I know that it would fail in a few years.
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