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Company Founder Biographies: Founder bios of some of the most successful people in business today. |  |
Bill Joy Bio, Founder of Sun Microsystems
In 1982, 3 years out of Berkeley, Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems, named for the Stanford University Network communications project, out of which Andy Bechtolsheim's 68000 Unix system workstation had been born -- and it was around that system, and other Unix workstations, that the company was built. Joy worked as chief scientist at the company, which due to the specialization of its customer base never became as big or well-known as some other computer manufacturers, but did experience enormous growth during the dotcom bubble. At that time, many of the startup companies seeking their fortunes online did so with expensive Sun servers, often bigger and faster than they really needed, in expectation of the sort of growth experienced by such success stories as eBay and Yahoo. When the bubble burst in 2001, Sun's performance staggered and slowed, and the sudden influx of barely-used Sun hardware onto the resale market not only meant a reduced number of customers, it meant that the company was competing with its own used goods. There were several rounds of layoffs and other downsizings. In 2003, Joy left Sun with no announced plans. He currently operates a venture capital firm with Bechtolsheim and fellow Sun alumnus Roy Thiele-Sardina. |
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