By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
Becoming a good business leader is simple. Show your employees money, and be honest with them. It is the way Scott McNealy, the co-founder and chairman of Sun Microsystems, thinks how he and his partners have built one of the most respected IT companies in the world over the past 26 years.
McNealy, in his third visit to Seoul on Tuesday, was just as outspoken to Korean reporters as he has been known for all the years. With a reddish face, a thick neck, a short haircut and the way he talks, the 52-year-old looked more like a Marine commander who briefs about field mission than a founder and long-time executive of a Silicon Valley IT firm.
``I will tell you about the most important aspect of being a good leader. It's not so secret, and I'll share it with anybody _ That you can't cheat,'' he said in a press conference held in Lotte Hotel in central Seoul, Tuesday. ``You've got to break character. You've got to be open, transparent and honest. I think we have a pretty good track record of that over the last 26 years at Sun.''
McNealy is one of the four men who founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, and is the only one among them who has stayed in the firm. He served as CEO for 22 years between 1984 and 2006, until he finally turned the job over to Jonathan Schwartz last year and took the relatively relaxed role of chairman.
``I try to be his coach, a consultant. I don't want to be his boss,'' he said about the relationship with Schwartz, who is trying to reinvigorate the company.
Sun Microsystems is a major supplier of computer servers and other hardware and software products to enterprises. It competes with firms like IBM, Hewlett Packard, Intel and Microsoft. The company's revenue for the fiscal year ended in June was $13.98 billion, with a net income of $473 million.
The firm also gets a big credit in the IT society for introducing the Java programming language and Java operating platform, which are now used in a wide range of electronics applications such as mobile phones, TVs as well as PCs _ in some six billion units, according to McNealy.
His long tenure as a CEO, however, didn't make him as famous as other popular IT celebrities such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. One of the reasons for the underestimation is that he lacks the aura of tech-geek that Gates and Jobs have. McNealy is a career businessman with an undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford.
``It's fair to say that I'm probably the most underestimated management guru,'' the 52-year-old said. ``I don't spend a lot of time talking about others. If our competition underestimates the leadership and capabilities of Sun, that's okay. (Instead) I spent a lot of time in universities talking to the kids about the tricks I learned about how to develop and grow and lead and manage technology organizations.''
McNealy came to Korea at the invitation of the Korea Electronics Show where he gave an opening speech on Tuesday. He is also having meetings with Korean electronics firms that use Sun's Java programming language to run mobile phones, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines. Explaining how Java is used in consumer electronics equipment, McNealy said his home in Santa Clara is full of Korean electronics so his family calls it a ``Samsung House.''
``Considering what people like Samsung and LG are doing with Java technologies, it is natural for me to come here,'' he said.
This year, Sun has been forging various partnership deals with its competitors in developing and selling computer server products. McNealy believes that yesterday's enemies can become today's friends, at least because they share the sales goal of making the pie bigger.
``In our world, there is no pure enemy any more. We love IBM, we love Microsoft, we love Intel. We love everybody. But that doesn't stop one from competing,'' he said.