Sun Microsystems: innovation success story of a rebel company

Throughout my professional life I have undertaken very different projects, but they have all had a common denominator: my passion for innovation and for people. In each of these projects I have discovered something valuable, and in each company I have been part of I have found an opportunity to give my best. But without a doubt, the most rewarding experience of my professional life has been the opportunity to lead Sun Microsystems Ibérica, and to contribute to its development as Vice President of Operations for the EMEA Region (Europe, Middle East and Africa).

For 20 years I was fortunate to work on cutting-edge projects with some of the most brilliant thinkers in the industry, innovators such as Scott McNealy, Eric Schmidt, Ed Zander, Carol Bartz and James Gosling. And all thanks to Sun’s unique culture and technologies. It was two decades of exciting work, professional growth and, why not say it, dreams fulfilled, because many of the slogans that guided and drove our activity at the time ended up taking shape until they became a reality, until they became part of our environment.

Sun, a success story in business innovation

Sun was always a rebellious company, which challenged the industry and the market. And since its foundation in the early 80s, its culture had incorporated the seeds of the Business Innovation and Collaboration. Soon after, these seeds bore fruit in Web 2.0. Without a doubt, Sun’s contributions and vision have contributed to making our world a little better, more open, transparent and collaborative.

That’s why in today’s reflection, I’d like to share some interesting leadership lessons from Sun’s experience and culture:

A unique mission

When I think of Sun, words like innovation, collaboration, or integrity come to mind. But if I had to choose a single word to define the spirit of the company, it would be rebellion. Sun defied all conventions. From the beginning, it tried to be a different company with a different mission: to create a better world.

The company’s mottos, now a reality, are a good reflection of its vision and its capacity for innovation:

Open Systems for Open Minds

Sun’s first slogan was “Open systems for Open minds”. Today it sounds very normal, because we are used to collaborating on the Internet, a common platform. But at that time it was a visionary and groundbreaking motto. We can say that, practically since its foundation, Sun tried to revolutionize the world of development with its pioneering commitment to open systems.

The network is the computer

Sun’s next motto was “The network is the computer,” and the company fought like no one else to make that vision a reality. Over time, the formidable development of the Internet, and in particular the rise of the Cloud – data is on a server, and accessible from any connected device – shows that Sun’s vision was full of meaning and content.

A culture of business innovation

The people who joined Sun did so because of the technology as well as the culture. There was never a rigid command structure. It was a rebellious and transgressive culture, made in the image and likeness of the leader. Scott McNealy was a born visionary. He personally handled all issues related to communication to employees and the culture of the company. He was therefore in charge of shaping that culture, pointing the way, and even “identifying enemies”. It is not surprising that the culture was shaped according to the messages and slogans that Scott conveyed in the corridors and at official events.

Here are some of the most famous:

Work hard and have fun

One of Scott’s favorite slogans was “Work hard have fun.” Talented people need to have fun with what they do. And at Sun, people had so much fun that they didn’t go home… I remember having to run a campaign with the slogan “go home now!” because people were having so much fun that they couldn’t find the right work-life balance.

Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission

For Scott, “it is preferable to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”. What this motto means is that in Sun there were practically no limitations, that it was preferable to take the plunge – and then rectify if necessary – than to remain paralyzed, thinking and thinking about possible inconveniences without doing anything.

In other words, Sun wasn’t the right place for people who just waited for orders.

It was an organisation that was quite reticent about perfectly defined and detailed processes. You had to figure out for yourself what needed to be done. The host programme itself reflected this spirit. This was its title: “Arrive, Thrive and Survive at Sun”. You could question almost everything, so it was an ideal place for diversity and tolerance.

Making our dream come true also in Spain

Sun Microsystems Ibérica started in April 1989, in Madrid, in a 100-square-meter apartment located on Paseo de la Habana, under the direction of José Aspas. Spain had just entered the Common Market. Telefónica was overwhelmed and took up to 6 months to install a line. In such a precarious situation, the important thing to set up the office was not the place, but the connection. Hence the choice of the apartment, which had two connections. The refrigerator had to be removed to connect the server, since the kitchen was the only place with sufficient electrical power, and the living room of the apartment was used for training. This informal environment coexisted with important signs of modernity, such as the use of mail ten years before its popularization.

At that time, Sun was spreading one of the messages I mentioned: the network is the computer. If in the United States that sounded like science fiction, imagine what it could sound like in Spain… It was the closest thing to going out on the street to preach wrapped in an orange robe, just like the Hare Krishnas did. And yet, Sun’s vision is also a reality in our country today.

A different company

Sun was always a different company. It was illustrated very well by a journalist from the magazine Actualidad Económica, who on one occasion came to interview me. At that time I was president of Sun Microsystems Ibérica. We had gone into a random room to conduct the interview. We had only a couple of questions when a person from Sun came in and “expelled” us… The journalist was really surprised, and told it like this in the introduction of the article:

“What would you think if someone told you that in your company, an employee could evict his president from a meeting room, arguing that he had booked it in advance? If I hadn’t had to interrupt the interview with José Cabrera, President of Sun Microsystems Ibérica, for that reason, I would have thought that this is impossible too. The situation was resolved without tension, naturally, but before leaving I couldn’t help but ask the employee. “Excuse me, do you know that you just fired the president? Yes,” he replied. “I had it reserved for a client.” The interview continued normally. My doubt is whether that employee is still in his position today. In that case, Sun is definitely different.

The answer is obvious: of course that employee stayed in his position. We had a different culture than the rest of the companies. The focus was on people, on creating environments where the business needs for control and results were compatible with personal needs for creativity and purpose. That was our way of doing things. The network was our culture, our way of working and our way of doing business. We were the first natives of the Internet, and that made us different.

Clearly, Sun was more than just a company for us. It was a way of approaching work and life. It was impressive to see that many smart people having fun while doing incredibly hard and demanding work, all in a high-risk yet high-return environment.

In the end, what Sun’s story proves is that there is no limit to what a group of committed people can achieve when they share a common vision and purpose. Sun had the guts to do what needs to be done if you want to innovate alone, and to thrive in an unpredictable and sometimes hostile environment. He had the inner will and confidence in his abilities to stick with a strategy that was unpopular at the time, and which later proved its worth.

The image that best defines Sun’s culture is that of a strange balance in which chaos and genius counterbalance each other, seeking a balance that is not always easy. As a result of this tension, great innovations such as Sparc, Solaris or Java emerged. Many of them were born unexpectedly, and against the company’s own technological Status Quo. So much so that internally, among Sun’s developers, the following saying circulated: “The value of a project is directly proportional to the number of times it has been canceled”. The best proof of this is that Java – which was later a star project – only saw the light of day after overcoming several cancellations of the original projects by the company.

Sun and leadership as a process of value creation through people

There are many lessons to be learned from this exciting adventure of innovation. But if I had to choose one, I would say that my experience at Sun is what has led me to understand Leadership as a process of value creation through people. This is the philosophy that I try to reflect and transmit in the conversations of this blog.

Three other ideas-forces that I consider essential to overcome the limitations of current management also have their origin in Sun:

1. Leadership is everyone’s job. The image of the charismatic leader, the genius who is at the top of the pyramid of organizations and is capable of knowing everything and having an answer for everything, has been outdated and obsolete. It simply no longer works. Today, the leader cannot be the only repository of the answer; he cannot only decide what to do or not to do, or what products to launch. That belongs to a past in which markets were stable, we knew the competition and we had made similar decisions on numerous occasions. In this new Era of Collaboration and knowledge, the leader cannot continue to be the decision-maker. That is why I am convinced that leadership is everyone’s job, therefore it is a
   collaborative or collaborative leadership
   , that is, a task that must be shared by all members of the organization.
2. Innovation is everyone’s job. Today’s ability to grow depends essentially on our ability to innovate. And innovation has become a job that we all need to share, a Open innovation. Organizations are full of people with interesting ideas, thinkers, and problem-solvers with an entrepreneurial spirit who just need an organizational culture that allows them to innovate.
3. Innovation has to translate into results. No company survives without results. No success story can end as in this famous joke: “The operation was a success. With only one exception: the patient has died”. Sun’s lesson also shows us that it is not enough to develop a powerful culture of innovation if we are not able to translate it into added value for customers, and transform that value into results for shareholders. In Scott’s words “have lunch or be lunch”.

Oracle-Sun, the future is here again

Whenever we look to the past, even if only to remember the moments we have lived, we run the risk of falling into a certain melancholy. That is not my intention. Sun still has many pages to write, and it is clear that from now on he will do so with the help of Oracle, which acquired the company just a year ago. The synergies between the two companies are obvious. Both companies have been pioneers and leaders in the technologies necessary to make the vision of “cloud computing” a reality for their customers. The future is already here again. The network is today more than ever the computer.

You can share your experience at Sun here.